briefly describes stages a rocket goes through to reach its final mission orbit

1. HOW TO REACH
IN SPACE
ON A ROCKET

2. ● In this century, the famous way of reaching space is using a launch vehicle
a.k.a rocket.
● A rocket is one way of reaching space, but one can think of a space elevator,
space canon or even a supersonic aeroplane among others.
● Briefly a rocket consists of the body, engine and a payload if any.
● Throughout this presentation, I am going to briefly talk about stages rockets
go through to reach space

3. At lift-off
● For a rocket to lift-off the launch pad, it has to overcome the force of
gravity(this force is strong for heavy rockets since mass is proportional to the
force) and drag due to the dense atmosphere
● Thrust is the forward force that pushes the rocket upwards and lifts it up.
This force is as a result of ignited and reacted exhaust exiting in an opposite
direction at very high speeds.
● When the magnitude of the thrust force exceeds that of both drag and gravity,
the rocket lifts off the pad

4. ● A few seconds after lift off, the rocket has to maintain stability. This is
achieved by the fins at the end of the rocket body. (fins increase the surface
area for atmospheric pressure to act on, hence lowering center of pressure of
the rocket below the center of gravity and achieving stability.
● Modern rockets have small or no fins at all, in such scenarios stability is
achieved by using the thrust vector control (TVC) system.
On the Ascent

5. ● As the rocket ascends in the sky, it’s total mass is reducing since propellants
are expended through the nozzle. And the magnitude of drag force reduces
because atmospheric pressure reduces as we go in the upper atmosphere.
● This means smaller thrust is required as the rocket reaches up in the
atmosphere. That is why the first stages of the famous rockets (falcon,
ULA’s vehicle etc) have numerous engines to provide huge amounts of
thrust at liftoff. But after reaching a certain altitude in the atmosphere, the
first stage is cutoff and a second stage with just a single engine takes over.

6. ● Depending on the purpose of the mission, if the final destination of the
payload is low earth orbit, the second stage deploys it to its mission orbit.
● If its an interplanetary travel, the second stage usually deploys the payload
into a parking orbit and its cutoff as the payload will continue with its
propulsion systems to the final destination.
Beyond the atmosphere

7. Conclusion
● To reach space, mission planners do rocket staging, this means the rocket has
different stages i.e first stage, second stage etc.
● Staging is essential because the different layers of the atmosphere have
unique properties and therefore require unique approaches. For Example in
the upper atmosphere there is less resistance to forward movement but high
risk of charges and temperatures.
● Whereas in the lower atmosphere, all we have to overcome is the strong
resistance for the upward motion.
● Therefore, reaching space is not an impossible journey but it's a journey with
stages and maneuvers.