🛸 Rocket Anatomy
Spin a real Falcon 9 or Starship. Pull it apart to see how the stages come together, and tap any glowing part to find out what it does, with real sourced numbers behind it.
Step through every part, one at a time.
Step through every part, one at a time.
Falcon 9, by the numbers
About as tall as a 20-storey apartment block, standing on its tail.
Just wide enough that two cars could park side by side inside it.
That is heavier than 400 cars — and almost all of it is fuel, not rocket.
Enough push to lift 775 elephants straight off the ground.
A school bus full of satellites — but only if the rocket does not come back.
Higher orbits are much harder, so the rocket can carry far less up there.
Very cold air-juice and very clean lamp oil. One burns, one makes it burn.
Meet the Merlin engine
The second stage swaps to Merlin Vacuum (MVac): 934 kN of push at 348 s of efficiency, through a nozzle 165:1 wider than the nine engines below it.
Merlin rocket engine family