3 A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W Y

Launch System

A launch system is a vehicle designed to carry a payload into space. The vehicle typically consists of several rocket stages discarded one by one as the vehicle gains altitude and speed.

The earliest launch systems were treated as expendable, but from the time of the space shuttle (first launched in 1981), there has been some developments which can be reused.