Elon Musk is pretty proud of his rocket ship technology innovations, as well he should be. SpaceX are light years ahead of anyone else, as far as reusable rocket engineering is concerned.
Today, he showed the world the “hypersonic grid fins (x-wing config)” installed on a Falcon 9 and undergoing testing. He explains their function in a tweet, which we share with you below.
Grid fins are stowed on ascent and then deploy on reentry for “x-wing” style control. Each fin moves independently for pitch/yaw/roll.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 22, 2014
@John_Gardi Using legs as air brakes to drop terminal velocity in half requires slight redesign & more data. Maybe flight 21.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 22, 2014
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