TYPES OF ROCKET PROPULSION

There are three basic types of rocket propulsion: chemical, nuclear, and electrical. Chemical rockets use chemicals, in solid or liquid form, for fuel and oxidizer, or the chemical that contains the oxygen needed to burn the fuel (together, the fuel and oxidizer are called the propellant). Nuclear rockets use the heat of nuclear reactions to heat chemical propellants for combustion. Electrical rockets use electric and magnetic fields (regions of space affected by electrical and magnetic energy) to accelerate and expel ions and elementary particles. Ions are atoms with positive or negative electrical charges, and elementary particles such as protons, neutrons, and electrons are the tiny building blocks of matter that make up atoms.