A launch vehicle is typically a rocket-powered vehicle designed to carry a payload (a crewed spacecraft or satellites) from Earth's surface or lower atmosphere to outer space. The most common form is the ballistic missile-shaped multistage rocket, but the term is more general and also encompasses vehicles like the Space Shuttle. Most launch vehicles operate from a launch pad, supported by a launch control center and systems such as vehicle assembly and fueling. Launch vehicles are engineered with advanced aerodynamics and technologies, which contribute to high operating costs.
An orbital launch vehicle must lift its payload at least to the boundary of space, approximately and accelerate it to a horizontal velocity of at least . Suborbital vehicles launch their payloads to lower velocity or are launched at elevation angles greater than horizontal.
Practical orbital launch vehicles use chemical propellants such as solid fuel, liquid hydrogen, kerosene, liquid oxygen, or hypergolic propellants.
Launch vehicles are classified by their orbital payload capacity, ranging from small-, medium-, heavy- to super-heavy lift.
Launch vehicles are classed by NASA according to low Earth orbit payload capability:
Small-lift launch vehicle: < - e.g. Vega
Medium-lift launch vehicle: - e.g. Soyuz ST
Heavy-lift launch vehicle: > - e.g. Ariane 5
Super-heavy lift vehicle: > - e.g. Saturn V
Sounding rockets are similar to small-lift launch vehicles, however they are usually even smaller and do not place payloads into orbit. A modified SS-520 sounding rocket was used to place a 4-kilogram payload (TRICOM-1R) into orbit in 2018.
Orbital spaceflight requires a satellite or spacecraft payload to be accelerated to very high velocity. In the vacuum of space, reaction forces must be provided by the ejection of mass, resulting in the rocket equation. The physics of spaceflight are such that rocket stages are typically required to achieve the desired orbit.
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Develop your promising idea into a successful business concept proposal, and launch it! Gain practical experience in the key steps of the venture creation process, including marketing and fundraising.
Develop your promising idea into a successful business concept proposal, and launch it! Gain practical experience in the key steps of the venture creation process, including marketing and fundraising.
The course introduces the basic concepts of thermodynamics and heat transfer, and thermodynamic properties of matter and their calculation. The students will master the concepts of heat, mass, and mom
The objective of the course is to present with different viewpoints, the lessons learned which lead to the decisions in the space exploration and their consequences today and for the decades to come.
The main objective of the course is to provide an overview of space propulsion systems. The course will also describe the basic design principles of propulsion systems.
A sub-orbital spaceflight is a spaceflight in which the spacecraft reaches outer space, but its trajectory intersects the surface of the gravitating body from which it was launched. Hence, it will not complete one orbital revolution, will not become an artificial satellite nor will it reach escape velocity. For example, the path of an object launched from Earth that reaches the Kármán line (about – above sea level), and then falls back to Earth, is considered a sub-orbital spaceflight.
Vega (Vettore Europeo di Generazione Avanzata, or Vecteur européen de génération avancée, or European Vector of Advanced Generation, meaning "Advanced generation European carrier rocket") is an expendable launch system in use by Arianespace jointly developed by the Italian Space Agency (ASI) and the European Space Agency (ESA). Development began in 1998 and the first launch took place from the Centre Spatial Guyanais on 13 February 2012.
An orbital spaceflight (or orbital flight) is a spaceflight in which a spacecraft is placed on a trajectory where it could remain in space for at least one orbit. To do this around the Earth, it must be on a free trajectory which has an altitude at perigee (altitude at closest approach) around ; this is the boundary of space as defined by NASA, the US Air Force and the FAA. To remain in orbit at this altitude requires an orbital speed of ~7.8 km/s. Orbital speed is slower for higher orbits, but attaining them requires greater delta-v.