For the homonymous article, see floor. The third stage of a Saturn V rocket shortly after its separation from the control module

A floor is a separable element of a space rocket.

The so-called vernier stage - or vernier motor stage - is an additional stage, not part of the launcher itself, of a multi-load ballistic missile intended to make minor corrections to the trajectory or to inject the different reentry bodies on trajectories leading to the objectives assigned to them respectively.

Around 1591, a German artificer, Johann Schmidlap, invented the trench rocket, a multi-stage pyrotechnic machine lit sequentially and making it possible to reach the fireworks at a higher altitude. It is the ancestor of the multi-stage rockets used today. In the First World War, they resurfaced with the ancestors of rockets, used by airmen to hit enemy observation balloons.

The greatest progress from the end of the 19th century to the Second World War was due to Pedro Paulet, director of the first liquid propellant engine, then to Louis Damblanc who launched the first stage rocket, and finally to Robert Goddard .

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