Definition of "booster rocket" []

• The first stage of a multistage rocket (noun)

WordNet. Princeton University. 2010.

• "* In a letter published in Air & Space Smithsonian in 2003, William G. Cowdin, former program manager for the Dyna-Soar booster rocket maker Aerojet-General in Sacramento, Calif., reported an alleged conversation he had with Armstrong about Dyna-Soar abort procedure: At that time there was debate as to whether a pilot could react fast enough to prevent a catastrophic event, or whether automatic sensors should be included in the design."
• "A large Boeing-built booster rocket used to lift satellites into their final orbits and to accelerate space probes out of Earth orbit."
• "But as the scientist Richard P. Feynman notoriously demonstrated in a presentation before Congressional investigators, the decision to launch on a cold morning caused the booster rocket O rings to become brittle and to leak rocket fuel after takeoff."