Grid fin
Type of flight control surface used on rockets and bombs / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Grid fins (or lattice fins) are a type of flight control surface used on rockets and bombs, sometimes in place of more conventional control surfaces, such as planar fins. They were developed in the 1950s by a team led by Sergey Belotserkovskiy [ru][1] and used since the 1970s in various Soviet ballistic missile designs such as the SS-12 Scaleboard, SS-20 Saber, SS-21 Scarab, SS-23 Spider, and SS-25 Sickle, as well as the N-1 (the intended rocket for the Soviet moon program). In Russia, they are thus often referred to as Belotserkovskiy grid fins.
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Grid fins have also been used on conventional missiles and bombs such as the Vympel R-77 air-to-air missile; the 3M-54 Klub (SS-N-27 Sizzler) family of cruise missiles; and the American Massive Ordnance Air Blast (MOAB) large-yield conventional bomb, and on specialized devices such as the Quick-MEDS delivery system and as part of the launch escape system for the Soyuz spacecraft.
In 2014, SpaceX tested grid fins on a first-stage demonstration test vehicle of its reusable Falcon 9 rocket,[2] and on December 21, 2015 they were used during the high-velocity atmospheric portion of the reentry to help guide a commercial Falcon 9 first stage back to land for the first successful orbital booster landing in spaceflight history.
The 1st stage of the private Chinese company i-Space's Hyperbola-1 rocket appeared on July 25, 2019 to be equipped with steerable grid fins for attitude control.
On July 25, 2019, China launched a modified version of Long March 2C which featured grid fins atop the first stage for controlled re-entry of the spent rocket stage away from people in nearby towns and cities.[3]