Staging Delta-V Calculator

About this calculator

Delta-v is the total change in velocity a rocket can produce by burning its propellant, and it's the single number that determines what a rocket can actually do — reach orbit, transfer to another planet, land, and so on. For a single stage, it's given by the Tsiolkovsky rocket equation: Δv = Isp × g0 × ln(m_wet / m_dry).

Staging — jettisoning empty tanks and engines partway through a burn — exists because dragging dead mass along wastes propellant; a multi-stage rocket's total delta-v is simply the sum of each stage's individual delta-v, computed with that stage's own specific impulse and wet/dry mass ratio. Aerospace engineers designing launch vehicles, along with hobbyists using tools like Kerbal Space Program, use this calculation to check whether a given rocket design has enough performance margin to reach its mission's required delta-v budget.