rocket engine

See synonyms for rocket engine on Thesaurus.com

noun

a reaction engine that produces a thrust due to an exhaust consisting entirely of material, as oxidizer, fuel, and inert matter, that has been carried with the engine in the vehicle it propels, none of the propellant being derived from the medium through which the vehicle moves.

Origin of rocket engine

First recorded in 1930–35

Also called rocket, rocket motor .

Words Nearby rocket engine

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024

How to use rocket engine in a sentence

Lastly, one of Blue Origin’s biggest strengths has been its rocket engines, particularly the BE-4.
Blue Origin could definitely use more Jeff Bezos in the next decade | Neel Patel | February 4, 2021 | MIT Technology Review
Anyone who has lived with large rocket engines understands that their awesome power is produced by machinery churning away at very high temperatures, pressures and velocities.
Meet the people paying $55 million each to fly to the space station | Christian Davenport | January 26, 2021 | Washington Post
In December, the company aborted a test flight after its onboard computer that monitors the rocket engines lost connection.
2021 could be a huge year for space. Here’s what’s to come from NASA, Elon Musk, Richard Branson and Jeff Bezos. | Christian Davenport | December 30, 2020 | Washington Post
The actual rocket engines don’t make a safe landing—they burn up and crash into the sea.
SpaceX Starship Prototype Exploded, but It’s Still a Giant Leap Towards Mars | Hugh Hunt | December 17, 2020 | Singularity Hub
Image from a mid-October test firing of the E-2 rocket engine injector.
Meet Launcher, the rocket engine builder with just eight employees | Eric Berger | November 9, 2020 | Ars Technica

Both a rocket engine with a temperamental record and an airframe of revolutionary design and construction had to be proved safe.
Virgin Galactic’s Flight Path to Disaster: A Clash of High Risk and Hyperbole | Clive Irving | November 1, 2014 | THE DAILY BEAST
After tests this January, it was decided to the fuel powering the rocket engine should have its rubber removed.
SpaceShipTwo Flew on Untested Rocket | Dave Majumdar, Clive Irving | October 31, 2014 | THE DAILY BEAST
The RD-171, which would become the RD-180, was a more advanced liquid fuel rocket engine than anything we had.
Why Does the USA Depend on Russian Rockets to Get Us Into Space? | P. J. O’Rourke | June 22, 2014 | THE DAILY BEAST

British Dictionary definitions for rocket engine

rocket engine

noun

a reaction engine in which a fuel and oxidizer are burnt in a combustion chamber, the products of combustion expanding through a nozzle and producing thrust: Also called: rocket motor

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Scientific definitions for rocket engine

rocket engine

An engine used to produce a jet of hot gases to propel a rocket. The jet is produced by combustion of a fuel with other chemicals stored in the rocket. Since they do not rely on the oxygen in the atmosphere for combustion, rocket engines can operate in space. Compare turbojet.

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