A rocket (from Italian: rocchetto, lit. ''bobbin/spool'', and so named for its shape) is an elongated flying vehicle that uses a rocket engine to accelerate without using any surrounding air. A rocket engine produces thrust by reaction to exhaust expelled at high speed. Unlike jet engines, rockets are fuelled entirely by propellant which they carry, without the need for oxygen from air; consequently a rocket can fly in the vacuum of space, and indeed rocket engines operate more efficiently outside 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 may use momentum, airfoils, auxiliary reaction engines, gimballed thrust, momentum wheels, deflection of the exhaust stream, propellant flow, and spin, or may simply fly in a ballistic trajectory under the influence of 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 the consequences of accidents can be severe. The term "rocket" is also used for small fireworks, which are the subject of article rocket (firework).
History
Gunpowder-powered rockets evolved in medieval China under the Song dynasty by the 13th century. They also developed an early form of multiple rocket launcher during this time. The Mongols adopted Chinese rocket technology and the invention spread via the Mongol invasions to the Middle East and to Europe in the mid-13th century. According to Joseph Needham, the Song navy used rockets in a military exercise dated to 1245. Internal-combustion rocket propulsion is mentioned in a reference to 1264, recording that the "ground-rat", a type of firework, had frightened the Empress-Mother Gongsheng at a feast held in her honor by her son the Emperor Lizong. Subsequently, rockets are included in the military treatise Huolongjing, also known as the Fire Drake Manual, written by the Chinese artillery officer Jiao Yu in the mid-14th century. This text mentions the first known multistage rocket, the 'fire-dragon issuing from the water' (Huo long chu shui), thought to have been used by the Chinese navy. Medieval and early modern rockets were used militarily as incendiary weapons in sieges. Between 1270 and 1280, Hasan al-Rammah wrote al-furusiyyah wa al-manasib al-harbiyya (The Book of Military Horsemanship and Ingenious War Devices), which included 107 gunpowder recipes, 22 of them for rockets. In Europe, Roger Bacon mentioned firecrackers made in various parts of the world in the Opus Majus of 1267. Between 1280 and 1300, the Liber Ignium (Book of Fire) gave instructions for constructing devices that are similar to firecrackers based on second-hand accounts. Konrad Kyeser described rockets in his military treatise Bellifortis around 1405. Giovanni Fontana, a Paduan engineer in 1420, created rocket-propelled animal figures. The name "rocket" comes from the Italian rocchetta, meaning "bobbin" or "little spindle", given due to the similarity in shape to the bobbin or spool used to hold the thread from a spinning wheel. Leonhard Fronsperger and Conrad Haas adopted the Italian term into German in the mid-16th century; "rocket" appears in English by the early 17th century. Artis Magnae Artilleriae pars prima, an important early modern work on rocket artillery, by Casimir Siemienowicz, was first printed in Amsterdam in 1650.
The Mysorean rockets were the first successful iron-cased rockets, developed in the late 18th century in the Kingdom of Mysore (part of present-day India) under the rule of Hyder Ali.
… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.
