How does a rocket engine work?
A rocket engine works by ejecting stored material. It pushes on this material to make the material accelerate and the material pushes back on the engine. If the force that the ejected material exerts on the engine is upward and greater than the rocket’s weight, the rocket will accelerate upward.
Most rocket engines are chemical engines. They combine stored chemical fuels to produce hot, high-pressure gas. This gas is allowed to expand out of a narrow orifice—the throat of the engine’s exhaust nozzle. Gases always accelerate toward lower pressure, so the high-pressure gas moves faster and faster as it rushes out of the nozzle. It reaches sonic velocity (the speed of sound) in the nozzle’s throat and continues to move faster and faster as it flows out of the nozzle’s widening bell. By the time the gas leave the engine completely, it’s traveling several thousand meters per second. A liquid fuel rocket has an exhaust velocity of about 4,500 meters per second or about 3 miles per second. Accelerating the gas to this enormous speed takes a huge force—the engine pushes down hard on the gas. The gas pushes back and propels the rocket upward.