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V-2 Rocket
The V-2 rocket burned a mixture of alcohol as fuel and liquid oxygen as oxidiser, and it achieved great amounts of thrust by considerably improving the mass flow rate of fuel to about 150 kg (380 lb) per second. The V-2 featured much of the technology we see on rockets today, such as turbo pumps and guidance systems, and due to its range of around 300 km -
Bumper-WAC Rocket
In 1948, the US Army combined a captured V-2 rocket with a WAC Corporal rocket to build the largest two-stage rocket to be launched in the United States. This two-stage rocket was known as the “Bumper-WAC”, and over course of six flights reached a peak altitude of 400 kilometres (250 miles), pretty much exactly to the altitude where the International Space Station (ISS) orbits today. The rocket burned a mixture of alcohol as fuel and liquid oxygen. -
R-7 Rocket
At the turn of 1950s the German designs were abandoned and replaced with the inventions of Aleksei Mikhailovich Isaev which was used as the basis for the first Soviet ICBM, the R-7. The rocket burned a mixture of alcohol as fuel and liquid oxygen. -
Vostok Rocket
The R-7 was further developed into the Vostok rocket which launched the first satellite, Sputnik I, into orbit on October 4, 1957, a mere 12 years after the end of WWII. The launch of Sputnik I was the first major news story of the space race. The rocket also burned a mixture of alcohol as fuel and liquid oxygen. -
Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, and Soyuz Fuel Rockets
In 1951, H.J. Allen and A.J. Eggers discovered that a high drag, blunted shape, not a low-drag tear drop, counter-intuitively minimises the re-entry effects by redirecting 99% of the energy into the surrounding atmosphere. Allen and Eggers’ findings were published in 1958 and were used in the Mercury, Gemini, Apollo and Soyuz manned space capsules. This used a two-stage liquid-fuel rocket, using a hypergolic propellant combination of Aerozine 50 fuel and nitrogen tetroxide oxidizer. -
Luna 8K72 Rocket
Luna 1 was launched by a Luna 8K72 rocket. Luna 1 was the first spacecraft to reach the vicinity of the Earth's Moon, and the first spacecraft to be placed in heliocentric orbit. Intended as an impactor, Luna 1 was launched as part of the Luna program in 1959, however due to an incorrectly timed upper stage burn during its launch, it missed the Moon; in the process becoming the first spacecraft to leave geocentric orbit. It served as an experiment of gas as a fuel in outer space. -
Vanguard SLV 4 Rocket
Aboard a Vanguard SLV 4 rocket as part of the United States Navy's Project Vanguard, the success of this launch was an important part of the space race between the United States and the Soviet Union. The satellite was designed to measure cloud-cover distribution over the daylight portion of its orbit and to provide information on the density of the atmosphere for the lifetime of its orbit (about 300 years). This rocket used a solid fuel source. -
Saturn V Rocket
The Saturn V rocket was an American human-rated expendable rocket used by NASA between 1967 and 1973. The three-stage liquid-fueled super heavy-lift launch vehicle was developed to support the Apollo program for human exploration of the Moon, and was later used to launch Skylab, the first American space station. -
Atlantis Rocket
Constructed by the Rockwell International company in Southern California and delivered to the Kennedy Space Center in Eastern Florida in April 1985, Atlantis is the fourth operational and the second-to-last Space Shuttle built.Its maiden flight was STS-51-J from 3 to 7 October 1985. A Space Shuttle External Tank (ET) was used; it contained the liquid hydrogen fuel and liquid oxygen oxidizer needed for propulsion. -
Falcon 9 Rocket Engine
Falcon 9 is a family of two-stage-to-orbit launch vehicles, named for its use of nine first-stage engines, designed and manufactured by SpaceX. Both stages are powered by rocket engines that burn liquid oxygen (LOX) and rocket-grade kerosene (RP-1) propellants. The first stage is designed to be reusable, while the second stage is not.
