Centaur upper stage
E288033
The Centaur upper stage is a high-energy rocket stage developed by the United States that pioneered the use of liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen propellants to boost payloads from low Earth orbit to higher orbits and interplanetary trajectories.
All labels observed (4)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| Centaur upper stage canonical | 3 |
| Atlas V Centaur upper stage | 1 |
| Dual-Engine Centaur | 1 |
| Single-Engine Centaur | 1 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T2494725 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Centaur upper stage Context triple: [RL10, usedOn, Centaur upper stage]
-
A.
Starship upper stage
The Starship upper stage is the fully reusable spacecraft component of SpaceX’s Starship launch system, designed to carry crew and cargo to Earth orbit, the Moon, Mars, and beyond.
-
B.
Atlas-Centaur
Atlas-Centaur was an American expendable launch vehicle family that combined an Atlas booster with a high-energy Centaur upper stage to send payloads, including early interplanetary probes, into space.
-
C.
Titan IIIE-Centaur
Titan IIIE-Centaur was a U.S. expendable launch vehicle that combined a Titan III booster with a high-energy Centaur upper stage to send deep-space probes such as Voyager 2 on interplanetary trajectories.
-
D.
Vulcan Centaur
Vulcan Centaur is United Launch Alliance’s next-generation, two-stage heavy-lift rocket designed to replace Atlas V and Delta IV for a wide range of commercial, government, and deep-space missions.
-
E.
Exploration Upper Stage
The Exploration Upper Stage is a powerful second stage designed to enhance NASA’s Space Launch System rocket’s capability to send heavier payloads and crewed missions deeper into space, including to the Moon and beyond.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Centaur upper stage Target entity description: The Centaur upper stage is a high-energy rocket stage developed by the United States that pioneered the use of liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen propellants to boost payloads from low Earth orbit to higher orbits and interplanetary trajectories.
-
A.
Starship upper stage
The Starship upper stage is the fully reusable spacecraft component of SpaceX’s Starship launch system, designed to carry crew and cargo to Earth orbit, the Moon, Mars, and beyond.
-
B.
Atlas-Centaur
Atlas-Centaur was an American expendable launch vehicle family that combined an Atlas booster with a high-energy Centaur upper stage to send payloads, including early interplanetary probes, into space.
-
C.
Titan IIIE-Centaur
Titan IIIE-Centaur was a U.S. expendable launch vehicle that combined a Titan III booster with a high-energy Centaur upper stage to send deep-space probes such as Voyager 2 on interplanetary trajectories.
-
D.
Vulcan Centaur
Vulcan Centaur is United Launch Alliance’s next-generation, two-stage heavy-lift rocket designed to replace Atlas V and Delta IV for a wide range of commercial, government, and deep-space missions.
-
E.
Exploration Upper Stage
The Exploration Upper Stage is a powerful second stage designed to enhance NASA’s Space Launch System rocket’s capability to send heavier payloads and crewed missions deeper into space, including to the Moon and beyond.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (50)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
expendable launch vehicle stage
ⓘ
rocket upper stage ⓘ |
| configurationVariant |
Centaur
ⓘ
surface form:
Centaur D
Centaur ⓘ
surface form:
Centaur D-1A
Centaur G-Prime ⓘ
surface form:
Centaur D-1T
Centaur G-Prime ⓘ
surface form:
Centaur G
Centaur G-Prime ⓘ Centaur G-Prime ⓘ
surface form:
Centaur II
Centaur G-Prime ⓘ
surface form:
Centaur III
Centaur V ⓘ Centaur V ⓘ
surface form:
Centaur V-AC
Centaur T ⓘ
surface form:
Centaur V-SEC
|
| countryOfOrigin |
United States of America
ⓘ
surface form:
United States
|
| developer |
Convair
ⓘ
General Dynamics ⓘ Lockheed Martin ⓘ United Launch Alliance ⓘ |
| engineManufacturer | Aerojet Rocketdyne ⓘ |
| engineTypeUsed | RL10 ⓘ |
| firstFlight | 1962-05-08 ⓘ |
| firstLaunchVehicle | Atlas LV-3C ⓘ |
| notableCapability |
high specific impulse
ⓘ
multiple restarts in space ⓘ |
| notableMission |
Cassini–Huygens
ⓘ
surface form:
Cassini–Huygens mission
New Horizons ⓘ
surface form:
New Horizons mission
Pioneer plaque project ⓘ
surface form:
Pioneer interplanetary missions
Surveyor lunar lander launches ⓘ Voyager program ⓘ
surface form:
Voyager missions
|
| operatedBy | United Launch Alliance ⓘ |
| oxidizer | liquid oxygen ⓘ |
| pioneeredUseOf | liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen propellant combination for upper stages ⓘ |
| primaryFunction |
boost payloads from low Earth orbit to higher orbits
ⓘ
send payloads on interplanetary trajectories ⓘ |
| propellant |
liquid hydrogen
ⓘ
liquid oxygen ⓘ |
| status | operational ⓘ |
| typicalEngineCount |
1
ⓘ
2 ⓘ |
| usedForMissionType |
Earth observation satellite deployment
ⓘ
geostationary transfer orbit missions ⓘ interplanetary science missions ⓘ national security payload deployment ⓘ |
| usedOnLaunchVehicle |
Atlas II
ⓘ
Atlas III ⓘ Atlas V ⓘ Atlas-Centaur ⓘ Titan IIIE ⓘ Titan IV ⓘ Vulcan Centaur ⓘ |
| usesCryogenicPropellants | true ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: Centaur upper stage Description of subject: The Centaur upper stage is a high-energy rocket stage developed by the United States that pioneered the use of liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen propellants to boost payloads from low Earth orbit to higher orbits and interplanetary trajectories.
Referenced by (6)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.
this entity surface form:
Dual-Engine Centaur
this entity surface form:
Single-Engine Centaur