The Collaborative International Dictionary
Booster \Boost"er\ (b[=oo]st"[~e]r), n.
(Elec.) An instrument for regulating the electro-motive force in an alternating-current circuit; -- so called because used to ``boost'', or raise, the pressure in the circuit.
an enthusiastic supporter.
the first stage of a multistage rocket, providing all or part of the driving force at lift-off and until the second stage ignites, whether or not the booster stage is detached after the fuel is spent. Also called booster rocket. In some cases, a booster has been used to assist the takeoff of airplanes.
(Med.) an immunizing medication given after an initial immunizing treatment, to provide increased or extended immunity. Also called booster dose. When in the form of an injection, it may be called a booster shot.
any auxiliary device or part of a device to provide increased power, force, or effectiveness, as with a pumping device.
(Mil.) an explosive charge which is more powerful than a primer, used in conjunction with a primer to assure detonation of the main charge. Integrated blasting caps containing separate compartments for primer and booster are used as detonators for certain explosives.
WordNet
n. the first stage of a multistage rocket [syn: booster, booster unit, multistage rocket, takeoff booster, takeoff rocket]
Usage examples of "booster rocket".
In the planetarium foyer was a mockup of the spacecraft which could have achieved the mission, perhaps in the early 1990s, assembled from hauntingly familiar components: Energia heavy-lift boosters, a Mir-based habitat module, a Mars lander built around Proton booster rocket stages.
The Russian SS-9 missile, like many American counterparts, was obsolete and had been adapted as a satellite booster rocket.
You manoeuvre yourself like a spacecraft, but using your mouth as a booster rocket.
Their complaints started even before the booster rocket took off from Baikanour.
A cool, dry wind rustled her honey-blond hair as she came within reach of the powerful European booster rocket, designed to place commercial satellites in orbit high above the Earth.
It has been determined that defective O-ring seals in Challenger's starboard booster rocket leaked fire to touch off the explosion in the main fuel tank, some nine miles off the ground.
That booster rocket had never actually fired, though, for it wasn't needed, and wasn't really a rocket, but was, rather, an empty shell with an A-wing cleverly tucked inside.
Besides that, the Solace Militia has thirty or forty conventional tubes that can range you with rocket assisted rounds, but they won't have any payload to speak of after what the booster rocket requires.
Four small dishwasher-sized satellites had been released just hours earlier aboard a booster rocket launched from a converted DC-10 airliner and placed into a one-hundred-mile circular orbit, positioned so that each satellite was over the Korean peninsula every twenty minutes.
First the control lamps of the booster rocket would flare up with red, white and blue lights.
And they're private enterprise (though Gary has finally compromised and accepted a government contract for a big dumb booster rocket).
The force shoved her hard into the sky like an extra booster rocket, bringing her to breakaway speed in record time.