Why do rockets need to fly at speed greater than 11.81 km/s (escape velocity)?

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Isn’t going up with velocity greater than 9.81 m/s be enough to escape earth’s gravity?

In: Physics

9 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

Escape velocity is the initial velocity a *projectile* would need to escape from the gravity well of an object without any further action, and ignoring things like air resistance.

With rockets you need to have enough energy to generate Delta-V (change in velocity) equal to the escape velocity over the course of the launch (allowing for additional fuel to overcome air resistance and other losses) but the rocket itself won’t reach anywhere near that velocity at any point during the launch as a lot of the energy is going straight to overcoming gravity.

Once in space it might get accelerated past that speed if it’s a probe intended to travel long distances, to do this it will have substantial additional fuel to accelerate once in space.

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