Brennschluss is an English borrowed term (from German

German language

German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....

):

• The moment in the trajectory of a rocket when the fuel burns out, after which it continues with its own momentum for some distance and then begins to succumb to gravity.
• The cessation of burning in a rocket, resulting from consumption of the propellants, from deliberate shutoff, or from other cause; the time at which this cessation occurs.

In the 1950s, former German

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 rocket engineer Willy Ley

Willy Ley

Willy Ley was a German-American science writer and space advocate who helped popularize rocketry and spaceflight in both Germany and the United States. The crater Ley on the far side of the Moon is named in his honor.-Life:...

, who had emigrated before the Anschluss

Anschluss

The Anschluss , also known as the ', was the occupation and annexation of Austria into Nazi Germany in 1938....

 and hence never worked on the V-2 rocket

V-2 rocket

The V-2 rocket , technical name Aggregat-4 , was a ballistic missile that was developed at the beginning of the Second World War in Germany, specifically targeted at London and later Antwerp. The liquid-propellant rocket was the world's first long-range combat-ballistic missile and first known...

 tried to get this term used by the English-speaking aerospace industry. The British used the term "all-burnt" while the Americans used "burn-out."

Cultural references

The term Brennschluss is used in various English works, including:

• the book Gravity's Rainbow
  Gravity's Rainbow
  Gravity's Rainbow is a postmodern novel written by Thomas Pynchon and first published on February 28, 1973.The narrative is set primarily in Europe at the end of World War II and centers on the design, production and dispatch of V-2 rockets by the German military, and, in particular, the quest...
  
  
• the novels Rip Foster Rides the Gray Planet
  Rip Foster Rides the Gray Planet
  Rip Foster Rides the Gray Planet is a Young adult fiction, science fiction novel written by Harold L. Goodwin under the pseudonym Blake Savage. The novel was originally published by Racine in hardcover in 1952 and reprinted in the United Kingdom later in the same year as Rip Foster Rides the Grey...
  
  , Double Star
  Double Star
  Double Star is a science fiction novel by Robert A. Heinlein, first serialized in Astounding Science Fiction and published in hardcover the same year...
  
  , and The Rolling Stones (novel)
  The Rolling Stones (novel)
  The Rolling Stones is a 1952 science fiction novel by Robert A. Heinlein....
  
  .