What are rockets???
Most of the time people are curious to know about our world. How many things or events occur make humans curious about the world. Today humans have reached above the sky and now targetting to live in space. Now many people are curious about how we are getting to space and what is the physics behind it?? Today I am going to talk about the basics about the rocket and hope you will learn something great from it.
Robert Hutchings Goddard was an American engineer, professor, physicist, and inventor who is credited with creating and building the world’s first liquid-fueled rocket. Goddard successfully launched his rocket on March 16, 1926, ushering in an era of space flight and innovation. The first-of-its-kind rocket reached an altitude of 41 feet, lasted 2 seconds and averaged about 60 miles per hour.
Many new kinds of rockets have been invented and more rockets are upgraded to send next-generation humans to far stars and THE ROAD TO MAKING HUMANITY MULTIPLANETARY!! From Newton's law to Einstein’s theory of relativity, people have found more information about space and rockets. So to understand more about space we need to send stuff to space with the help of rockets. So how does a rocket works??
Rockets work because of Newtons Third Law. Newton’s Third Law states that “every action has an equal and opposite reaction”. In a rocket, burning fuel creates a push on the front of the rocket pushing it forward. This creates an equal and opposite push on the exhaust gas backwards. In the modern world, there are two types of rockets, solid-fueled rocket and liquid-fueled rocket. In a solid-fueled rocket, the propellants are solid and in a liquid-fueled rocket, the propellants are liquid (hence the names).
Liquid-fueled rocket
In a liquid-fueled rocket, there are two types of propellants, the oxidizer and the fuel. The oxidizer is mainly oxygen and the fuel is hydrogen. So these two propellants are pumped to a chamber known as pre-burner, In the pre-burner, a small portion of propellant is combusted, and the increasing volume flow is used to drive the turbopumps that feed the engine with propellant. turbines that run cooler and at lower pressure, due to increased mass flow, leading to longer engine life and higher reliability. and this process is called staged-combustion cycle. The staged combustion cycle is a power cycle of a bipropellant rocket engine. In the staged combustion cycle, propellant flows through multiple combustion chambers and is thus combusted in stages. after that, the propellants are pumped into the combustion chamber where the propellants are combusted to produce energy heat and pressure which gives the rocket thrust but before going into the combustion chamber, the propellants go through the fuel injector and it helps to mix the propellants mix efficiently. Then a spark is used to combust the propellants to produce thrust. To produce good thrust the combustion force has diverged through a nozzle which is almost like a clone and its shape helps to diverge that force to produce thrust. However high temperature produced will make the nozzle hot and to protect the nozzle fuel is piped around the nozzle to decrease the temperature and to save energy. To change the direction of the rocket by the gimbal mechanism which helps to manoeuvre the rocket the gimbal mechanism helps ti deviate the rocket because any deviation from its normal angle will produce a torque which will make the rocket’s body turn. During ignition, the rockets speed is 0 km/hr but after a few time, its speed increases to 2800 km/hr!!!
The advantages of a liquid-fueled are=
The combustion process is controllable.
The speed regulation is possible.
More economical for long-range operations.
The disadvantages of a liquid-fueled are=
More complicated construction
Manufacturing cost is high
The size and weight are more compared to solid-fueled rocket.
Solid-fueled rocket
In a solid Fueled rocket the propellants are in solid form and they are already mixed. and are protected by an insulated cover which helps to reduce heat. At the front of the rocket, there is an igniter which produces a spark and helps to burn the propellant. Due to the ignition, the combustion starts and produce thrust and the nozzle helps to diverge the combusted gases to produce thrust.
The advantages of a solid-fueled are=
Simple in designing and construction.
They do not need any feed system.
Less vibration due to the absence of moving parts.
The disadvantages of a solid-fueled are=
In case of emergency, it is difficult to stop the engine in a mid way.
Decreasing speed is not possible.
It cannot be able to after once ignited.
Parts of a rocket
There are four parts of a rocket. Payload system, Guidance system, Structure system and the Propulsion system.
The structural system
The structural system of a rocket includes all of the parts which make up the frame of the rocket; the cylindrical body, the fairings, and any control fins. The function of the structural system is to transmit the loads from the forces generated during the flight and to provide low aerodynamics drag for flight through the atmosphere.
The payload system
The payload of a rocket depends on the rocket’s mission. The payload of a rocket carries cargo or other scientific stuff to space like crews, satellites etc.
The guidance system
The guidance system of a rocket includes very sophisticated sensors, on-board computers, radars, and communication equipment. The guidance system has two main roles during the launch of a rocket; to provide stability for the rocket, and to control the rocket during manoeuvres.
The propulsion system.
The propulsion of a rocket includes all of the parts which make up the rocket engine; the tanks pumps, propellants, powerhead, and rocket nozzle. The function of the propulsion system is to produce thrust.
Some of the coolest rockets!!!
Saturn V
Space Launch System
Falcon 9
Starship
Atlas
Soyuz
New Shephard and many more….
I want to end it here and I hope that it will be informative for you and will help you more about rockets. I might be wrong in some parts of this article but please ignore those. Bye Bye!!!