Why do missiles have fins, while modern space rockets don’t?
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Some of the answers here are wrong. We know that fins are only effective with airflow, but some answers ignore that big rockets have stages and they even have different engines for atmospheric flight and another for vacuum.
Another problematic assumption is that “modern rockets don’t have fins”. Some of them still have, and some of the older designs didn’t have it. SpaceX Starship and the Chinese Changzheng 5 still have fins.
But if I had to guess, I would say that the trend of using fewer fins for rockets would be to how gimbal engines become more reliable and stable.
(And I don’t know about missiles, lol)
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