Portal:Rocketry
The Rocketry Portal
A rocket (from Italian: rocchetto, lit. 'bobbin/spool') is a vehicle that uses jet propulsion to accelerate without using the surrounding air. A rocket engine produces thrust by reaction to exhaust expelled at high speed. Rocket engines work entirely from propellant carried within the vehicle; therefore a rocket can fly in the vacuum of space. Rockets work more efficiently in a vacuum and incur a loss of thrust due to the opposing pressure of the atmosphere.
Multistage rockets are capable of attaining escape velocity from Earth and therefore can achieve unlimited maximum altitude. Compared with airbreathing engines, rockets are lightweight and powerful and capable of generating large accelerations. To control their flight, rockets rely on momentum, airfoils, auxiliary reaction engines, gimballed thrust, momentum wheels, deflection of the exhaust stream, propellant flow, spin, or gravity.
Rockets for military and recreational uses date back to at least 13th-century China. Significant scientific, interplanetary and industrial use did not occur until the 20th century, when rocketry was the enabling technology for the Space Age, including setting foot on the Moon. Rockets are now used for fireworks, missiles and other weaponry, ejection seats, launch vehicles for artificial satellites, human spaceflight, and space exploration.
Chemical rockets are the most common type of high power rocket, typically creating a high speed exhaust by the combustion of fuel with an oxidizer. The stored propellant can be a simple pressurized gas or a single liquid fuel that disassociates in the presence of a catalyst (monopropellant), two liquids that spontaneously react on contact (hypergolic propellants), two liquids that must be ignited to react (like kerosene (RP1) and liquid oxygen, used in most liquid-propellant rockets), a solid combination of fuel with oxidizer (solid fuel), or solid fuel with liquid or gaseous oxidizer (hybrid propellant system). 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. (Full article...)
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Atlas is a family of US missiles and space launch vehicles that originated with the SM-65 Atlas. The Atlas intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) program was initiated in the late 1950s under the Convair Division of General Dynamics. Atlas was a liquid propellant rocket burning RP-1 kerosene fuel with liquid oxygen in three engines configured in an unusual "stage-and-a-half" or "parallel staging" design: two outboard booster engines were jettisoned along with supporting structures during ascent, while the center sustainer engine, propellant tanks and other structural elements remained connected through propellant depletion and engine shutdown.
The Atlas name was originally proposed by Karel Bossart and his design team working at Convair on project MX-1593. Using the name of a mighty titan from Greek mythology reflected the missile's place as the biggest and most powerful at the time. It also reflected the parent company of Convair, the Atlas Corporation. (Full article...)In the news
- 10 May 2024 – M23 offensive
- The death toll from rocket strikes on an IDP camp in Goma, Democratic Republic of the Congo, increases to 35. (AP)
- 7 May 2024 – M23 offensive
- The death toll from rocket strikes on an IDP camp in Goma, Democratic Republic of the Congo, increases to 18. (Reuters)
- 5 May 2024 – Israel–Hamas war
- Israeli air raids in Meiss Ej Jabal, Lebanon, cause "massive destruction" according to a Lebanese state-run agency, killing four civilians and injuring three others. In response, Hezbollah fires dozens of Katyusha and Falaq rockets towards Kiryat Shmona, Israel. (Reuters)
- Three Israeli soldiers are killed and ten civilians are injured when Hamas launches a rocket barrage at the Kerem Shalom border crossing. (Times of Israel) (Reuters) (Jerusalem Post)
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