How do rocket work?

Rocket obtains thrust from a rocket engine. Rocket engine exhaust is formed entirely from propellant carried within the rocket.

Rocket engines work by action and reaction and push rockets forward simply by expelling their exhaust in the opposite direction at high speed, and can therefore work in the vacuum of space.

In fact, rockets work more efficiently in the vacuum of space than in an atmosphere. Multistage rockets are capable of attaining escape velocity from Earth and therefore can achieve unlimited maximum altitude.

©Forbes

A rocket design can be as simple as a cardboard tube filled with black powder, but to make an efficient, accurate rocket or missile involves overcoming a number of difficult problems. The main difficulties include cooling the combustion chamber, pumping the fuel (in the case of a liquid fuel), and controlling and correcting the direction of motion.

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.

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.

©National Geographic

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 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.

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.

Rocket exhaust generates a significant amount of acoustic energy. As the supersonic exhaust collides with the ambient air, shock waves are formed.

The sound intensity from these shock waves depends on the size of the rocket as well as the exhaust velocity. The sound intensity of large, high performance rockets could potentially kill at close range.