Engineering

Boosting rocket reliability at the material level

The success of the SpaceX Falcon 9 reusable launch vehicle has been one of the most remarkable technological achievements of the last decade. Powered by SpaceX's Merlin engine, the Falcon 9 booster can be reused over 10 times, ...

Automotive

Breakthrough in faster-than-sound jet engines

Almost 75 years ago, U.S. Air Force pilot Chuck Yeager became the first person to fly faster than the speed of sound. Engineers have been pushing the boundaries of ultrafast flight ever since, attaining speeds most of us ...

Telecom

Musk activates Starlink internet service in Ukraine

Elon Musk said Saturday his company SpaceX's Starlink satellite broadband service had been activated in Ukraine, after a Kyiv official urged the tech titan to provide his embattled country with stations.

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Rocket

A rocket or rocket vehicle is a missile, spacecraft, aircraft or other vehicle which obtains thrust by the reaction of the rocket to the ejection of fast moving fluid exhaust from a rocket engine. Chemical rockets create their exhaust by the combustion of rocket propellant. The action of the exhaust against the inside of combustion chambers and expansion nozzles is able to accelerate the gas to hypersonic speed, and this exerts a large reactive thrust on the rocket (an equal and opposite reaction in accordance with Newton's third law).

Rockets, in the form of military and recreational uses, date back to at least the 13th century. Widespread military, scientific, and industrial use did not occur until the 20th century, when rocketry was the enabling technology of the Space Age, including setting foot on the moon.

Rockets are used for fireworks, weaponry, ejection seats, launch vehicles for artificial satellites, human spaceflight and exploration of other planets. While comparatively inefficient for low speed use, they are very lightweight and powerful, capable of generating large accelerations and of attaining extremely high speeds with reasonable efficiency.

Chemical rockets store a large amount of energy in an easily-released form, and can be very dangerous. However, careful design, testing, construction and use minimizes risks.

This text uses material from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA