Foldable grid fin àla Soyuz/Falcon 9R

[CaptRobau]

The new

, showing off the foldable control surfaces made me look into the concept of grid fins. They're quite interesting. They have seen most use in the Soviet Union/Russia, but as the new Falcon announcement shows they're being looked into by others as well. What do they do? They're control surfaces but they're foldable (which is hard to do with normal fins). As such they've seen/are seeing use as stabilizing surfaces on Launch Escape Systems or rocket stages and control surfaces for landing steering. Having a foldable fin would (especially with aerodynamic improvements) be an interesting addition to game's control surfaces.

Grid fins for helping to steer the Falcon 9R

Proposal for grid fin stabilization on the Orion spacecraft's Launch Escape System (LES)

Grid fins on the Soyuz's LES

[X10Z]

I believe there are a few mods that do this, but I don't remember which ones.

[prophet_01]

You might do that with airbreaks from b9. I think there is also a spoiler function that activates control surfaces. I never used the latter so I have no idea if they work that way. Anyway, I would definetly like to see airbreaks in the stock game. If there would be a tweakable included that lets you adjust the breaking power or let you use ist as a control surface you are pretty close to what you want.

btw: you just gave me the idea to modify my probes to remain orientated correctly during airobreaks I want to use the same heatshield for the aerobreaking of the probe and the decent of the included lander. It's harder than it appeared first due to the CoG/CoL of the whole thing (with FAR and DRE that's a thing). It's rather specific, but I've been trying to do that for days now so thx

[kerbiloid]

This detail was several times called "grid fin" in KSP mods.

One of them: http://www.curse.com/ksp-mods/kerbal/220999-kerbonov-parts-pack