What is rocket fuel made of

Top 5 Facts — Rocket fuels. Hybrid propellants — These are a combination of solid and liquid propellants, with a liquid oxidiser injected into a solid fuel.

Hybrids are a lot cleaner than solid rockets. Hydrazine — Commonly known as hypergolic rocket fuel, hydrazine simply needs nitric acid in order to ignite and is frequently used for propulsion when out in space. Rocket-grade petroleum is called RP-1 and consists of a highly refined kerosene mixed with liquid oxygen. There are two main types of rocket fuel used on modern rockets: liquid and solid. Liquid fuels are further subcategorised into either petroleum, cryogens or hypergols.

Petroleum is fuel derived from crude oil and hydrocarbons, cryogens are those stored at very low temperatures such as liquid hydrogen , while hypergols are able to self-ignite on contact between the fuel and the oxidiser. To get a rocket from the ground into space, rockets need both solid fuel and liquid fuel.

You would think that rockets could just carry liquid fuel because liquid fuel is more efficient and gives more push when burned. However, having only liquid fuel would require a huge tank of fuel. Instead, rockets are boosted off the ground by solid fuel. The boosters are dropped off the rocket to make it lighter, and then the liquid fuel is burned to allow the rocket to keep moving upward in space. Therefore, rocket fuel can be categorized into solid or liquid fuels.

Rocket engines and boosters carry both fuel and an oxidizer. For solid fuel, the components are aluminum and ammonium perchlorate. For liquid fuel, the components are liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen. When combined, the fuels release water, which allows the rocket to leave the ground. What is rocket fuel made of?

Home » Space Questions » What is rocket fuel made of? Every day, we use products made of aluminum alloys, or mixes with other metals, for things like beverage containers, covering leftovers, or iPhones. Ammonium perchlorate, the salt of perchloric acid and ammonia, is a powerful oxidizer read: majorly explosive. In the boosters, the aluminum powder and ammonium perchlorate are held together by a binder, polybutadiene acrylonitrile, or PBAN. The mixture, with the consistency of a rubber eraser, is then packed into a steel case.

When it burns, oxygen from the ammonium perchlorate combines with aluminum to produce aluminum oxide, aluminum chloride, water vapor and nitrogen gas — and lots of energy. This reaction heats the inside of the solid rocket boosters to more than 5, degrees Fahrenheit, causing the water vapor and nitrogen to rapidly expand. Just like in the liquid engines, the nozzle funnels the expanding gases outward, creating thrust and lifting the rocket from the launch pad. Compared to liquid engines, solid motors have a lower specific impulse — the measure rocket fuel efficiency that describes thrust per amount of fuel burned.

However, the propellant is dense and burns quite quickly, generating a whole lot of thrust in a short time. Watch the real show when SLS launches in Join in the conversation: Visit our Facebook page to comment on the post about this blog.