![]() Altogether, the combustion in the spacecraft's rockets produces great amounts of exhaust gas at high temperatures and pressure. At the same time, a great amount of heat is produced because combustion is an exothermic reaction (it makes energy, in the form of heat and/or light). However, the Space Shuttle's two solid rocket boosters used aluminum powder as the fuel and ammonium perchlorate as the oxidizer.ĭuring combustion, new compounds are made and these are called the exhaust. For example, on the Space Shuttle the orbiter's three main engines used liquid hydrogen as the fuel and liquid oxygen as the oxidizer. Usually the fuel is an organic compound (containing hydrogen and/or carbon, and sometimes even metals). ![]() Combustion is a fast chemical reaction between a fuel and an oxidizer (such as oxygen) where the fuel is burned or oxidized. ![]() Rocket engines function on the principle of combustion. On the right in this picture you can see the Space Shuttle and its three main components: the orbiter (the white winged plane in the middle), the large external fuel tank (behind the orbiter), and two solid rocket boosters (also behind the orbiter, on the left and right sides).Ĭontrary to popular belief, it does not take an explosion to get a spacecraft off of the earth. Rocket engines on spacecrafts, like NASA's Space Shuttle (shown here), use a type of chemical reaction called combustion to launch the spacecraft. At launch, the two solid rocket boosters, along with the orbiter's three main engines, would power the liftoff. It had three major components: the orbiter (a winged "space-plane" which held the astronauts and different kinds of payload), the large, dark orange-colored external fuel tank, and two solid rocket boosters. The Space Shuttle did operational flights for 30 years, from 1981 to 2011. One well-known spacecraft that you may have seen launch is the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)'s Space Shuttle, shown in Figure 1 below. All rockets depend on combustion to provide the thrust that is required for a vessel to overcome the force of gravity and climb into space. Have you ever watched a spacecraft launch on television or seen one live? One question that may have crossed your mind when watching this awesome spectacle is, "How does a spacecraft lift off and get into space?" The simple answer to this question is that the spacecraft has engines that lift it into space.
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