Rocket launch with dramatic exhaust plume against twilight sky

Rockets of the World

19 launch vehicles compared by payload, cost, and performance

ROCKET FACTORY

Build a Falcon 9, piece by piece

Install every part yourself in a 3D hangar, then pull the whole rocket apart. Each piece explains why it exists — and what breaks if you leave it out.

Open the factory ▸

BUILD CHALLENGE

Can you design a rocket that works?

One mission, one budget, your choices — then launch it and find out. Too little thrust and it never leaves the pad. The rocket equation decides, not us.

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ROCKET EVOLUTION

Eighty years, one ground line

Drag through time and watch rockets change — a 14 m weapon, a 111 m Moon rocket, a 124 m stainless-steel promise, all at true relative scale. They don’t just get bigger; they stop, then get clever.

Scrub the timeline ▸

MANUFACTURING JOURNEY

Ore in the ground to a rocket on the pad

Aluminium isn’t rare — it was precious because nobody could afford the electricity to free it. Follow the chain: red rock, white powder, molten metal, a weld that never melts.

Follow the chain ▸

INSIDE THE ROCKET

Climb up through the tanks

Liquid oxygen falls through a tank of kerosene to reach the engines. Saturn V did it with five pipes; Falcon 9 does it with one. Go in and see why.

Go inside ▸

BUILD LIKE…

The same problem, different answers

There is no “best” rocket company. There are only different things to optimise for — and SpaceX proves it by contradicting itself.

See the tradeoffs ▸

BUILD

A rocket is just the start. Build a whole space station.

Assemble the ISS in orbit, fly it through an eclipse, then pull a part out and watch what dies — the same hands-on engine, now for spacecraft of every kind.

Open the Build hub ▸