Thrusters are as good at flipping cars as they are at hunting ballistic missiles.

Tesla's long-delayed and still unreleased Tesla Roadster was formally reintroduced on October 15 and besides an angular, Cybertruck-esque design and the ability to go 0-60 mph in less than a second, the company's big surprise was that it can fly. The car can't really "fly" in the tradition of Back to the Future Part II, but more through a collection of controlled falling, jumping and flipping maneuvers. While admittedly impressive, the concept isn't unique to Tesla. Experimental missile defense systems have featured similar uses of thrusters since at least the early 2000s, in a form factor that's now called a Multiple Kill Vehicle or MKV.

In the case of the Roadster, the supercar is able to pull off its much lauded kickflips thanks to two high-pressure air tanks and ten nozzles placed throughout the car that fire off compressed air to move and stabilize it. Tesla claims the Roadster can refill those tanks on its own, though the full thruster setup is also only fully available on the Rocket trim of the car. The Thruster trim only features thrusters on the back of the car, and the Performance trim doesn't have them at all. Importantly, Tesla also says that the thrusters "aren't approved for public road use."

" That system carries several smaller vehicles that are designed to smash into missiles to destroy them, and it keeps itself aloft using thrusters that can quickly change its direction and orientation on the fly, not unlike the Roadster.

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