SpaceX announced the new grille wing design of its future Starship super-heavy booster. Starship is the world’s largest rocket currently under development and the only vehicle designed to be captured by a launch tower. SpaceX said these new grille wings will be used in the next generation of super-heavy boosters and have made several upgrades to improve rocket performance.
IT House noted that this year SpaceX has tested the second-generation Starship superior stage and continues to use the first-generation super-heavy booster. During testing, the booster demonstrated high reliability, and SpaceX successfully solved the problem of early engine and stage separation. In addition, the company has successfully captured boosters three times, but failed to achieve a soft landing in the ocean during a recent Starship test flight.
In this test, SpaceX also tried to make the booster fly at a large angle of attack when re-entering the atmosphere to reduce air resistance and save propellant. The test appears to be designed to design the new grille wing, and earlier today, SpaceX announced the first redesign of its Starship grille wing on social media. Grille wings are critical to SpaceX’s operations, as they are also one of the key reasons why the company was able to achieve a powered landing on the Falcon 9 rocket booster.
SpaceX notes that the new grille wings are 50% larger and stronger than their predecessors. As a result, SpaceX could use three instead of four grille wings to control the vehicle and enable the Starship Super Heavy booster to return to Earth at a higher windward angle.
These new grille wings will also be responsible for capturing super-heavy boosters on launch towers. Similar to the Falcon 9 booster, SpaceX will also capture the Starship booster through the launch tower and eventually fly again after only refueling. According to SpaceX, the design team set up new capture points on the booster and lowered the position of the grille wings to allow for tower capture. In addition, the components responsible for controlling the grille wings, such as shafts, actuators and other structures, will be placed inside the booster’s fuel tank.
However, these new grille wings may be applied to third-generation super-heavy boosters. Elon Musk today shared an image of a rocket with a new grille wing and confirmed that it is a third-generation starship.
At the moment, SpaceX has not conducted the 10th flight of Starship, and photos taken by local media show that the upper stage vehicle has returned to the launch site for engine testing. Earlier today, SpaceX conducted an engine pump test before preparing to return the vehicle to the construction facility.