Explore: Rocket Propulsion

Interplanetary vehicles mostly use chemical rockets as well, although a few have used electric propulsion such as ion thrusters and Hall-effect thrusters

2025[update], no nuclear thermal rocket has flown. Whereas all early applications for nuclear thermal rocket propulsion used fission processes, research

A liquid-propellant rocket or liquid rocket uses a rocket engine burning liquid propellants. (Alternate approaches use gaseous or solid propellants.)

orbit. The propulsion system is controlled by power electronics. Electric thrusters typically use much less propellant than chemical rockets because they

could be more efficient than conventional rocket engines. The idea of using nuclear material for propulsion dates back to the beginning of the 20th century

as conventional chemical rockets or non-rocket launch technologies to reach their initial orbit. A type of electric propulsion, spacecraft such as Dawn

A nuclear electric rocket (more properly nuclear electric propulsion) is a type of spacecraft propulsion system where thermal energy from a nuclear reactor

and separate from the reaction mass. This form of propulsion differs from a conventional chemical rocket where both energy and reaction mass come from the

solid-propellant rocket or solid rocket is a rocket with a rocket engine that uses solid propellants (fuel/oxidizer). The earliest rockets were solid-fuel rockets powered

A fusion rocket is a theoretical design for a rocket driven by fusion propulsion that could provide efficient and sustained acceleration in space without