Name:Mehraj Ahmed Nihal

Roll:13
Class: VIII
Subject: Physics
 Rockets

A rocket 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. In fact rockets work more efficiently in a vacuum and incur a loss of
thrust due to the opposing pressure of the atmosphere.
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 20 th century,
when rocketry was the enabling technology for the Space Age, including setting foot on
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.

Components:

Rockets consist of a propellant, a place to put propellant (such as a propellant tank), and a
nozzle. They may also have one or more rocket engines, directional stabilization devices
(such as fins, vernier engines or engine gimbals for thrust vectoring, gyroscopes) and a
structure (typically monocoque) to hold these components together. Rockets intended for
high speed atmospheric use also have an aerodynamic fairing such as a nose cone, which
usually holds the payload.

As well as these components, rockets can have any number of other components, such as
wings (rocketplanes), parachutes, wheels (rocket cars), even, in a sense, a person (rocket
belt). Vehicles frequently possess navigation systems and guidance systems that typically
use satellite navigation and inertial navigation systems.
  Engine

Rocket engines employ the principle of jet propulsion. The rocket engines powering
rockets come in a great variety of different types; a comprehensive list can be found in
the main article, Rocket engine. Most current rockets are chemically powered rockets
(usually internal combustion engines, but some employ a decomposing monopropellant)
that emit a hot exhaust gas. A rocket engine can use gas propellants, solid propellant,
liquid propellant, or a hybrid mixture of both solid and liquid. Some rockets use heat or
pressure that is supplied from a source other than the chemical reaction of propellants,
such as steam rockets, solar thermal rockets, nuclear thermal rocket engines or simple
pressurized rockets such as water rocket or cold gas thrusters. With combustive
propellants a chemical reaction is initiated between the fuel and the oxidizer in the
combustion chamber, and the resultant hot gases accelerate out of a rocket engine
nozzle (or nozzles) at the rearward-facing end of the rocket. The acceleration of these
gases through the engine exerts force (“thrust”) on the combustion chamber and nozzle,
propelling the vehicle (according to Newton’s Third Law). This actually happens because
the force (pressure times area) on the combustion chamber wall is unbalanced by the
nozzle opening; this is not the case in any other direction. The shape of the nozzle also
generates force by directing the exhaust gas along the axis of the rocket
 Propellants:

Rocket propellant is mass that is stored, usually in some form of propellant tank
or casing, prior to being used as the propulsive mass that is ejected from a rocket
engine in the form of a fluid jet to produce thrust. For chemical rockets often the
propellants are a fuel such as liquid hydrogen or kerosene burned with an
oxidizer such as liquid oxygen or nitric acid to produce large volumes of very hot
gas. The oxidiser is either kept separate and mixed in the combustion chamber,
or comes premixed, as with solid rockets.

Uses:

 Military:

Some military weapons use rockets to propel warheads to their targets. A rocket
and its payload together are generally referred to as a missile when the weapon
has a guidance system (not all missiles use rocket engines, some use other
engines such as jets) or as a rocket if it is unguided. Anti-tank and anti-aircraft
 missiles use rocket engines to engage targets at high speed at a range of several
miles, while intercontinental ballistic missiles can be used to deliver multiple
nuclear warheads from thousands of miles, and anti-ballistic missiles try to stop
them. Rockets have also been tested for reconnaissance, such as the Ping-Pong
rocket, which was launched to surveil enemy targets, however, recon rockets
have never come into wide use in the military.

 Space flights:

Larger rockets are normally launched from a launch pad that provides stable support until a
few seconds after ignition. Due to their high exhaust velocity—2,500 to 4,500 m/s (9,000 to
16,200 km/h; 5,600 to 10,100 mph)—rockets are particularly useful when very high speeds
are required, such as orbital speed at approximately 7,800 m/s (28,000 km/h; 17,000 mph).
Spacecraft delivered into orbital trajectories become artificial satellites, which are used for
many commercial purposes. Indeed, rockets remain the only way to launch spacecraft into
orbit and beyond.
They are also used to rapidly accelerate spacecraft when they change orbits or de-orbit for
landing. Also, a rocket may be used to soften a hard parachute landing immediately before
touchdown.
 Launch:

Launches for orbital spaceflights, or into interplanetary space, are usually from a fixed
location on the ground, but would also be possible from an aircraft or ship.

Rocket launch technologies include the entire set of systems needed to successfully launch a
vehicle, not just the vehicle itself, but also the firing control systems, mission control center,
launch pad, ground stations, and tracking stations needed for a successful launch or
recovery or both. These are often collectively referred to as the “ground segment”.

Orbital launch vehicles commonly take off vertically, and then begin to progressively lean
over, usually following a gravity turn trajectory.

Once above the majority of the atmosphere, the vehicle then angles the rocket jet, pointing
it largely horizontally but somewhat downwards, which permits the vehicle to gain and then
maintain altitude while increasing horizontal speed. As the speed grows, the vehicle will
become more and more horizontal until at orbital speed, the engine will cut off.
All current vehicles stage, that is, jettison hardware on the way to orbit. Although vehicles
have been proposed which would be able to reach orbit without staging, none have ever
been constructed, and, if powered only by rockets, the exponentially increasing fuel
requirements of such a vehicle would make its useful payload tiny or nonexistent. Most
current and historical launch vehicles “expend” their jettisoned hardware, typically by
allowing it to crash into the ocean, but some have recovered and reused jettisoned
hardware, either by parachute or by propulsive landing.