ETYM Latin missile.
(Homonym: missal).
A rocket-propelled vehicle carrying passengers or instruments or a warhead.
Rocket-propelled weapon, which may be nuclear-armed (see nuclear warfare). Modern missiles are often classified as surface-to-surface missiles (ssm), air-to-air missiles (aam), surface-to-air missiles (sam), or air-to-surface missiles (asm). A cruise missile is in effect a pilotless, computer-guided aircraft; it can be sea-launched from submarines or surface ships, or launched from the air or the ground.
Rocket-propelled weapons were first used by the Chinese about ad 1100, and were encountered in the 18th century by the British forces. The rocket missile was then re-invented by William Congreve in England around 1805, and remained in use with various armies in the 19th century. The first wartime use of a long-range missile was against England in World War ii, by the jet-powered German V1 (Vergeltungswaffe, “revenge weapon” or Flying Bomb), a monoplane (wingspan about 6 m/18 ft, length 8.5 m/26 ft); the first rocket-propelled missile with a preset guidance system was the German V2, also launched by Germany against Britain in World War ii.
Modern missiles are also classified as strategic or tactical: strategic missiles are the large, long-range intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs, capable of reaching targets over 5,500 km/3,400 mi), and tactical missiles are the short-range weapons intended for use in limited warfare (with a range under 1,100 km/680 mi).
Not all missiles are large. There are many missiles that are small enough to be carried by one person. The Stinger, for example, is an antiaircraft missile fired by a single soldier from a shoulder-held tube. Most fighter aircraft are equipped with missiles to use against enemy aircraft or against ground targets. Other small missiles are launched from a type of truck, called a mlrs (multiple-launch rocket system), that can move around a battlefield. Ship-to-ship missiles like the Exocet have proved very effective in naval battles.
The vast majority of missiles have systems that guide them to their target. The guidance system may consist of radar and computers, either in the missile or on the ground. These devices track the missile and determine the correct direction and distance required for it to hit its target. In the radio-guidance system, the computer is on the ground, and guidance signals are radio-transmitted to the missile. In the inertial guidance system, the computer is on board the missile. Some small missiles have heat-seeking devices fitted to their noses to seek out the engines of enemy aircraft, or are guided by laser light reflected from the target. Others (called tow missiles) are guided by signals sent along wires that trail behind the missile in flight.
Outside the industrialized countries, 22 states had active ballistic-missile programs by 1989, and 17 had deployed these weapons: Afghanistan, Argentina, Brazil, Cuba, Egypt, India, Iran, Iraq, Israel, North Korea, South Korea, Libya, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Syria, and Taiwan. Non-nuclear short-range missiles were used during the Iran–Iraq War 1980–88 against Iraqi cities.
Battlefield missiles used in the 1991 Gulf War included antitank missiles and short-range attack missiles. nato announced in 1990 that it was phasing out ground-launched nuclear battlefield missiles, and these are being replaced by types of tactical air-to-surface missile (tasm), also with nuclear warheads.
In the Falklands conflict 1982, small, conventionally armed sea-skimming missiles were used (the French Exocet) against British ships by the Argentine forces, and similar small missiles have been used against aircraft and ships elsewhere. + prikaži više

1. A device containing its own propellant and driven by reaction propulsion; SYN. rocket engine.
2. Any vehicle propelled by a rocket engine.
3. Propels bright light high in the sky, or used to propel a lifesaving line or harpoon; SYN. skyrocket.
Projectile driven by the reaction of gases produced by a fast-burning fuel. Unlike jet engines, which are also reaction engines, modern rockets carry their own oxygen supply to burn their fuel and do not require any surrounding atmosphere. For warfare, rocket heads carry an explosive device.
Rockets have been valued as fireworks over the last seven centuries, but their intensive development as a means of propulsion to high altitudes, carrying payloads, started only in the interwar years with the state-supported work in Germany (primarily by Wernher von Braun) and of Robert Hutchings Goddard (1882–1945) in the US. Being the only form of propulsion available that can function in a vacuum, rockets are essential to exploration in outer space. Multistage rockets have to be used, consisting of a number of rockets joined together.
Two main kinds of rocket are used: one burns liquid propellants, the other solid propellants. The fireworks rocket uses gunpowder as a solid propellant. The space shuttle's solid rocket boosters use a mixture of powdered aluminum in a synthetic rubber binder. Most rockets, however, have liquid propellants, which are more powerful and easier to control. Liquid hydrogen and kerosene are common fuels, while liquid oxygen is the most common oxygen provider, or oxidizer. One of the biggest rockets ever built, the Saturn V moon rocket, was a three-stage design, standing 111 m/365 ft high, weighed more than 2,700 metric tons/3,000 tons on the launch pad, developed a takeoff thrust of some 3.4 million kg/7.5 million lb, and could place almost 140 metric tons/150 tons into low Earth orbit. In the early 1990s, the most powerful rocket system was the Soviet Energiya, capable of placing 100 metric tons/110 tons into low Earth orbit. The US space shuttle can put only 24 metric tons/26 tons into orbit. + prikaži više

Sends a firework display high into the sky; SYN. rocket.