Characteristic velocity or
, or C-star is a measure of the combustion performance of a rocket engine independent of nozzle performance, and is used to compare different propellants and propulsion systems.
c* should not be confused with c, which is the effective exhaust velocity related to the specific impulse by:
Specific impulse and effective exhaust velocity are dependent on the nozzle design unlike the characteristic velocity, explaining why C-star is an important value when comparing different propulsion system efficiencies.
c* can be useful when comparing actual combustion performance to theoretical performance in order to determine how completely chemical energy release occurred.
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