Taurus Tomahawk, in rocketry

Rocket

A rocket is a missile, spacecraft, aircraft or other vehicle which obtains thrust from a rocket engine. In all rockets, the exhaust is formed entirely from propellants carried within the rocket before use. Rocket engines work by action and reaction...

 is a two-stage elevator sounding rocket

Sounding rocket

A sounding rocket, sometimes called a research rocket, is an instrument-carrying rocket designed to take measurements and perform scientific experiments during its sub-orbital flight. The origin of the term comes from nautical vocabulary, where to sound is to throw a weighted line from a ship into...

, consisting of a Taurus

Taurus rocket

Taurus is a four stage, solid fuel launch vehicle built in the United States by Orbital Sciences Corporation. It is based on the air-launched Pegasus rocket from the same manufacturer. The Taurus rocket is able to carry a payload of around 1,350 kg into a low Earth orbit. First launched in 1994,...

 starting stage and a TE-416 Tomahawk

TE-416 Tomahawk

The TE-416 Tomahawk is a rocket developed by the American company Thiokol at the beginning of the 1960s for Sandia National Laboratories. Although the TE-416 Tomahawk can be launched alone, it was started predominantly as upper stage in connection with other rockets, for example with a Nike rocket...

 upper stage.

Taurus Tomahawks were used between 1978 and 1987. The Taurus Tomahawk could carry 27 kilograms of payload to an altitude of 590 kilometers. The launch thrust

Thrust

Thrust is a reaction force described quantitatively by Newton's second and third laws. When a system expels or accelerates mass in one direction the accelerated mass will cause a force of equal magnitude but opposite direction on that system....

 of the Taurus Tomahawk amounted to 457 Kilonewtons, the launch weight 1.611 tons, the diameter of 0.58 meters and the overall length of 9.38 meters.