Vertical Rocket

Under the influence of the rocket thrust and gravity, the rocket velocity can be calculated as follows:

Develop expressions

For exhaust velocity =m/s and burn rate =kg/s the rocket thrust is x10^ N. For rocket mass = kg and fuel mass = kg, the time of burn is seconds and the velocity at burnout is calculated from which gives =m/s.

Fowles and Cassiday give as example data for a satellite launch a low orbit velocity of about 8 km/s, an initial velocity of about 0.5 km/s from the rotation of the earth near the equator, and an exhaust velocity of 2.5 km/s. You could use this data above to confirm that you could get only about 5 percent of the total initial mass into orbit. They suggest that effective ejection speeds for most rocket fuels are on the order of 2 to 4 km/s.