Multistage rocket

A rocket made of stacked propulsion stages that are discarded after their propellant is used, reducing the mass later stages must accelerate.

Tsiolkovsky rocket equation: An equation relating a rocket’s ideal change in velocity to exhaust velocity and the ratio of initial to final mass. It quantifies why discarding empty stages increases the velocity a rocket can gain.
Single-stage-to-orbit: A launch vehicle designed to reach orbit without discarding propulsion stages. It pursues the same orbital goal without shedding hardware during ascent.
Saturn V: The three-stage American launch vehicle that carried Apollo missions to the Moon. Its three sequential stages demonstrate staging on a crewed lunar mission.
Rocket: A vehicle or engine propelled by ejecting mass in the opposite direction of its motion. A multistage rocket is a particular vehicle built on this propulsion principle.
Stage separation: The process of disconnecting one rocket stage from another during flight. Reliable separation lets the next stage continue accelerating without carrying the spent stage.
Parallel staging: A rocket configuration in which multiple propulsion units operate alongside a central core. Side-mounted boosters provide a different staging arrangement from stacked stages.
Falcon 9: A two-stage orbital launch vehicle developed by SpaceX, with a reusable first stage. It combines conventional staging with recovery of its first stage.
Propellant: Material expelled by a rocket engine to produce thrust, often consisting of fuel and an oxidizer. A stage’s propellant is consumed before that stage is discarded.
Rocket engine: A propulsion device that produces thrust by expelling reaction mass. Each propulsion stage depends on one or more engines to generate thrust.
Serial staging: A rocket arrangement in which stages are stacked and used one after another. It is the conventional form of multistage design described by this concept.

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