[HN Gopher] $96 3D-printed rocket that recalculates its mid-air ...
___________________________________________________________________
$96 3D-printed rocket that recalculates its mid-air trajectory
using a $5 sensor
Author : ZacnyLos
Score : 368 points
Date : 2026-03-15 10:15 UTC (12 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (github.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (github.com)
| lukan wrote:
| So this is basically a DIY mini rocket clearly advertised to be
| used in an asymetrical war. I do not expect this project to
| remain on github for long.
| throwaway290 wrote:
| Insanity. Airbus fighter jets, open-source rockets on github...
| RobotToaster wrote:
| Can't wait for the open source fighter jet.
| abhikul0 wrote:
| Clawjet, secured with sandboxing, bring your own SKILLs.
| throwaway290 wrote:
| this is not funny yall!
| mschuster91 wrote:
| Just a few days ago, we got a legitimate from scratch open
| source design for a phased array radar [1].
|
| [1] https://hackaday.com/2026/03/12/open-source-radar-has-up-
| to-...
| dalelux9196 wrote:
| that's lit
| nutjob2 wrote:
| Airbus has been in the defense industry for a long time.
|
| And the deadliest weapons in war today are repurposed toys.
| mikkupikku wrote:
| Straight up admitting that it's meant to implement MANPADS is
| certainly a choice, I hope the author doesn't get himself in hot
| water.. ITAR or something..
|
| (Would be cool to see an ATGM variant too!)
| codethief wrote:
| As the YouTube comments say:
|
| > This guy really wants that defense contract.
| roysting wrote:
| They may just give it to him to buy him. It's the first stage
| of neutralizing the peasantry of rebellious thoughts against
| the aristocracy.
| Mizza wrote:
| This is bonkers. Video on GitHub:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DDO2EvXyncE
|
| I'm impressed by the kid's engineering and gumption, but I think
| he's a bit.. misguided, if you'll pardon the pun. The video ends
| with shots of Russian drone war, and, bizarrely, photos of David
| Koresh.
|
| I don't think this ends well.
| mikkupikku wrote:
| > _The video ends with shots of Russian drone war, and,
| bizarrely, photos of David Koresh._
|
| You're omitting that the end of the video also features
| pictures of Martin Luther King, Vietnamese civilians during
| America's invasion of their country and Afghani Mujahideen
| freedom fighters during the Soviet Union's invasion of theirs;
| I think he's trying to make a point about technology enhancing
| the capabilities of people who are in any conflict with
| conventionally powerful forces, not an endorsement of David
| Koresh.
| radialstub wrote:
| > I think he's trying to make a point about technology
| enhancing the capabilities of people who are in any conflict
| with conventionally powerful forces
|
| Which is absurd, since all the technology he used was
| manufactured by the conventionally powerful forces and they
| can decide to not sell you their stuff.
| roysting wrote:
| It's really odd how people will so easily fixate on the bone
| the government consisting of maniacal, narcissistic,
| psychopathic, pathological liars will throw them; while
| totally ignoring that the pathological lying, evil, murderous
| people in and of the government are constantly and
| ceaselessly, lying and murdering.
|
| There now carpet bombing and murdering people in Iran, just
| like they mass murdered people in Gaza, and they're doing it
| to cover up and distract from the fact that our government
| consists of raping pedophiles. That is who we are governed
| by. ... but David Koresh excuses it and makes any opposition
| invalid, of close.
| einpoklum wrote:
| I am completely against the US-Israeli war on Iran. That
| said, they are not carpet-bombing Iran. That is, they
| appear to be selecting individual targets rather than
| engaging in carpet bombing entire areas:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carpet_bombing
|
| The choice of targets is not legally legitimate (and the
| entire campaign is illegal AFAICT), and sometimes they used
| old/invalid intel, like what happened with that girls'
| school that's supposedly close to an IRGC base. Still, it
| is mostly individual buildings or installations rather than
| an attempt to flatten entire areas.
| srean wrote:
| They are using white phosphorus on populated areas in
| South Lebanon. That's as vile as one can get.
| saati wrote:
| Be that as it may, carpet bombing has a specific meaning,
| and it's not bombing one's not on board with.
| srean wrote:
| In the context of Iran I agree with you.
|
| Not so sure about South Lebanon. From whatever media
| coverage I saw, some look not that different from carpet
| bombing.
| victorbjorklund wrote:
| Evidence for the claim?
| srean wrote:
| https://share.google/aimode/CoVNoZcR3YOotyg5o
| clort wrote:
| Human Rights Watch claim it, and have analysed
| photographs put on social media
|
| https://www.hrw.org/news/2026/03/09/lebanon-israel-
| unlawfull...
|
| (they have also previously documented that Israel has
| done this in the past)
| NoMoreNicksLeft wrote:
| I always loved the "white phosphorous" stuff. The meme
| appeared on reddit out of nowhere, and once it did it
| made everyone who heard it completely utterly stupid.
| Suddenly it's a chemical weapon, the worst sort of
| atrocity anyone's heard of.
|
| The meme will never die. Skynet could be hunting down the
| last of humanity hiding in caves, and those humans will
| be crying "maybe it will just be nukes, please god, don't
| let the robots white phosphorous us!".
| srean wrote:
| I have handled this stuff (from remnants of unexploded
| munitions) and I know what it is.
|
| It is not spectacular but it is vile and terrifying. No
| amount of your "rape, oh that's just surprise sex" will
| diminish what it is.
| einpoklum wrote:
| Indeed, Israel and the US are quite vile. I have said so
| many times on placard which have then been ripped apart
| by the Israeli police. I only made a comment about the
| term "carpet bombing", as that is a specific term which
| means something else than "wide-scale bombing".
| Saline9515 wrote:
| Not carpet bombing, yet. Israelis said the same at the
| start of the most recent Gaza war, which ended with large
| neighborhoods being destroyed.
| roysting wrote:
| I understand your compulsion to rationalize things, make
| excuses for your abusers, but I ask you to contemplate
| for a moment what you are defending. One, hopefully we
| have all seen the genocidal bombing of Gaza turning whole
| regions of large apartment blocks into an hell-scape of
| rubble with tens of thousands of people buried underneath
| them; people, not animals, not "just brown people", not
| "terrorists"... people like you, like your wife or
| girlfriend, like your daughter or son or nephew...people
| who also want to live just like you even if far more
| humbly, without all the waste and decadence of the avg
| American. Should your loved ones be bombed and buried
| under a resort and luxury condo towers because a clan of
| billionaires do not like that you won't leave your land?
|
| Two, at the very least, the most generous interpretation,
| the very first strike to start an illegal war of
| aggression that the Nuremberg trial clearly established
| as the "mother of all subsequent evil", was not only on a
| girls school that killed dozens and dozens of young
| girls, but did so in a "double tap" process where they
| observed that people arrived in ambulances and parents in
| cars to pick up very small humans, and then they hit them
| again with another missile. Let us be clear about what
| you are excusing... They intentionally splattered the
| guts and flesh of young girls and their parents rushing
| to save them all over a 300 foot diameter blast radius.
|
| We can lie to ourselves that may have been a "mistake"
| but as established during the Nunberg trials, there is no
| defense in claiming that if you started the illegal and
| immoral war of aggression.
|
| Three, why are they hiding what is happening if it's all
| above board? Why would they not permit unfettered access
| showing what is being targeted bombing and that the
| Iranians are lying when they say that thousands of
| civilian structures have been bombed including schools
| and hospitals? You trust Hegseth? Trump? Need I say more?
|
| And all that is without even addressing that these people
| have done nothing but lie and lie about lying about
| lying.
|
| And let's also remember that as shocking as the files
| that gave been released, they have not even released even
| the slightly uncomfortable parts of the Epstein Files,
| let alone arrested any of the rapists and pedophiles that
| are now on yet another murder spree, starting that
| prosecuting everyone would cause the whole system to
| collapse!
|
| If want to believe people like that, people who do
| nothing but lie, rape, murder and cover up for it; then I
| guess there is nothing else to say and you will have to
| deal with that on your own as it eats you up from the
| inside. I for one am opposed to these types of people and
| actions and will speak out about it even if people don't
| like it. And I refuse to make excuses for it for any
| reason, be it personal weakness or comfort.
| vidarh wrote:
| They did not defend it or make excuses for it. They
| argued about the very specific claim of carpet bombing
| _in Iran_ , before pointing out the entire campaign is
| illlegal and calling the choice of targets "not legally
| legitimate".
|
| They also said nothing about Gaza.
|
| I share your concern about both Gaza and Iran, but
| criticising people for calling out an exaggeration is not
| helping anyone.
| mda wrote:
| "Ah look but they haven't carped bombed Iran" was their
| argument and it sounds really weird.
| koshergweilo wrote:
| That was not their argument at all. Their argument was
| that we're not carpet bombing Iran.
|
| They're quite explicit that they're on your side, why
| question their motivations?
| wombatpm wrote:
| And now they are claiming due to the war, they will stop
| releasing the remaining files.
| mda wrote:
| Oh so your line is carpet bombing? The attackers has
| shown they can do almost any atrocity many times (already
| killed thousands of woman and children in Gaza with zero
| remorse or accountability)
| itsthecourier wrote:
| what's your line? respecting "sovereignty" of dictators
| and mass murders/internet blocks/Armageddonian Islamic
| cosmology?
|
| talking about "your line" is way too simplistic. think in
| second and third order consequences. Iran exported and
| financially supported terrorists because of a repressive
| theological dictatorship
| mda wrote:
| I see, so this was to free Iranians from their dictators
| right? How is it going so far?
| einpoklum wrote:
| Yes, they have shown that. I don't understand your
| question about my "line", you'll need to be more
| explicit.
| huijzer wrote:
| I was reading your comment and thought you were a bit too
| extreme, but then I thought about it and was like "Hmmm.
| Yes. Sounds pretty accurate actually." So yes I agree.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| Who knew there were _war bros_.
| tclancy wrote:
| We might need them. Would be better than my theory that this
| country will recover at some point after they destroy the EPA
| and reintroduce leaded gas because that's what made this
| country great which leads to a generation of kids who are
| willing to throw bricks at cops again.
| laborcontract wrote:
| soo... i have no kept up with what's gone on in russia/ukraine.
| Are those drone videos what i think they are - drones sneaking
| up on humans and, presumably, ceasing them of life?
|
| edit: Ok, I googled the guy > I have read the
| works of authors such as Jean Baudrillard, Desmod Morris,
| and Ted Kaczynski who believe that technology is harming us and
| the world.
| https://wiki.opensourceecology.org/wiki/User:Alisherkhojayev
| mikkupikku wrote:
| Yes. Both sides are using explosive FPV drones, flown
| directly into soldiers (as well as other forms of drone
| warfare.)
| laborcontract wrote:
| thank you. that was unnerving to watch.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Yeah, this genie is well and truly out of the bottle.
| sorenjan wrote:
| Both Russia and Ukraine build millions of drones per year,
| most of them fpv drones that are basically remote controlled
| flying grenades. There's plenty of electronic warfare with
| radio jamming, so in some places they use drone mounted
| spools of fiber optic cable to control them. It's probably
| been the most impactful weapon type in the war for the past
| years.
| pjc50 wrote:
| > have no kept up with what's gone on in russia/ukraine
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Russo-
| Ukrain...
|
| "between 400,000 and 1.5 million estimated casualties (killed
| and wounded) during the Russian invasion of Ukraine from 24
| February 2022 to November 2025"
|
| Mostly due to artillery. Both sides are firing in the region
| of 10,000 155mm shells per day. For years.
| shrubble wrote:
| The fact that Koresh and his group held off Federal officers
| who stormed their building with simple guns that anyone can
| buy, is likely the point.
|
| Out of five and a half minutes of video, David Koresh appears
| for perhaps three seconds.
|
| It does put a new twist on the recent controversy about 3d
| printers needing to be licensed, however.
| randomNumber7 wrote:
| Yeah the solution is simple.
|
| Just licence everything private people can buy except
| (healthy food). /S
|
| Microcontrollers and electric motors are too dangerous for
| the general public.
| steve-atx-7600 wrote:
| I think this is within the intent of the 2nd amendment.
| Having groups of citizens check the power of their government
| by being armed comes with the the downside of abusive types
| forming cults. I think this tradeoff is worth it. Mass
| shooting evens and cults harming people are obviously
| terrible. But, I prefer living with some of that knowing that
| it provides recourse for becoming like the majority of
| Iranians that are so helpless that at least 10s of thousands
| were slaughtered in daylight by their government merely for
| protesting. It's easy to discount the possibility of becoming
| an oppressed citizenry if you grew up in the US where the
| worst you've heard about is maybe Kent state or early 2026
| ice murdering unarmed citizens. Armed citizens are not a
| guarantee from oppression, but I think it's important
| insurance.
| phplovesong wrote:
| What started in Ukraine, this is modern warfare. Like most
| "consumer" goods that are mass produced, you can now get a
| capable strike force for peanuts.
|
| The russians have taken close to 1.5 million casulties because
| ukraine engineering for cheap drones. Putin really, really f-ed
| up his "3 day military operation".
| randomNumber7 wrote:
| > This project manifesto declares a fundamental shift: advanced
| air-defense capabilities--once locked behind billion-dollar state
| arsenals and classified labs--are now within reach of determined
| individuals using consumer electronics, open-source software, and
| rapid prototyping.
|
| I guess a lot of people will not be happy with this xD
| Xmd5a wrote:
| > Description: Space echoes like an immense tomb, yet the stars
| still burn. Why does the sun take so long to die?
| pjc50 wrote:
| Translation: everyone should be able to shoot down an airliner,
| not just nations.
| PowerElectronix wrote:
| I mean, if we already "trust" nations with that power...
| MagicMoonlight wrote:
| Be very careful. Google and GitHub will turn you over without
| hesitation, and everyone who downloads this will probably be
| vanned.
|
| Remember kids, the warrantless search is only illegal if they
| don't find a surface to air missile. Anything can be made
| retroactively legal if they find something like this.
| redgridtactical wrote:
| The engineering is genuinely impressive for $96, but naming the
| repo "MANPADS-System-Launcher-and-Rocket" on GitHub is going to
| attract exactly the kind of attention you don't want. ITAR
| implications aside, the interesting part is the mid-flight
| trajectory recalculation on a $5 sensor. That's the same basic
| problem military guidance systems solve with hardware that costs
| thousands.
|
| The gap between consumer electronics and mil-spec capability
| keeps shrinking and this is a pretty stark demonstration of where
| that trend leads. A few years ago this would have required an IMU
| that cost more than this entire build. The democratization angle
| cuts both ways though - the same accessibility that makes this
| cool for hobbyists makes it genuinely concerning from a
| proliferation standpoint.
| mikkupikku wrote:
| It's not really terribly new actually, in the past, rapid
| advances in consumer technology have enabled other sort of
| weapon guidance systems. For instance, the development of
| extremely compact television cameras available to consumers
| directly lead to the development of the Walleye television
| bomb. It happened when one nerdy guy was fucking around with
| his new camera and realized that he could automatically track
| track features in an analogue television signal using some
| quite basic analogue electronics. Point the camera into the
| general direction of the target and you can then "lock on" to
| some target feature and based on contrast it could tell how
| that feature was moving around in the image.
|
| He implemented a 1D tracker in his garage, took it to work and
| showed people. A few years later these bombs are taking out
| bridges and even sometimes hitting moving trucks.
| jeffbee wrote:
| People made self-guided missiles with 1940s technology, in
| the 1940s. It can't be too much of a surprise if someone
| right now can make guided missiles in their garage with 2026
| electronics. At this point the "guided" feature is trivial,
| the "missile" part is doable, and the weapon has probably
| become the tricky part.
| dw_arthur wrote:
| Throwing an aside here that anyone interested in 1940s war
| technology must check out the old BBC documentary The
| Secret War (1977) which goes into depth on solving the
| engineering challenges of the war.
| hermitcrab wrote:
| Well worth a watch. I think I watched it on Youtube.
| mikkupikku wrote:
| I think the hard part was and will usually continue to be
| making the whole thing work effectively together with
| enough performance to actually work in practice. It's a lot
| of details across a lot of disciplines to get right.
| tclancy wrote:
| > The gap between consumer electronics and mil-spec capability
| keeps shrinking
|
| My friend's brother works in munitions and had, in his spare
| time, designed and prototyped a missile that could be built for
| about 10k. He pretty much was ignored by the contractor he
| works for.
|
| Shockingly, as of a couple weeks ago, they are all hot and
| bothered to talk.
| redgridtactical wrote:
| I wonder what could have possibly sparked that... lol
| redgridtactical wrote:
| That tracks. The defense primes have zero incentive to make
| things cheaper -- their business model is cost-plus. A guy
| building something for 10k in his garage is an existential
| threat to programs billing 500k per unit. Of course they
| ignored him until the geopolitical situation made it
| impossible to keep ignoring.
| srean wrote:
| > That tracks. The defense primes have zero incentive to
| make things cheaper
|
| Same in medical imaging industry.
| Mars008 wrote:
| Well, there are cheap portable ultrasound scanners and
| endoscopes.
| srean wrote:
| True.
|
| I was talking about those that are meant for hospitals.
| Was peripherally involved with a fledgling startup that
| was developing something cheap. Hospitals straightaway
| said noway.
| projektfu wrote:
| They would be desirable in places with poor advanced
| imaging penetration like Brazil. Usually only the largest
| city in a state has this sort of imaging.
| infinitewars wrote:
| If you build a tool optimized for human destruction, you are
| feeding a system where violence is the default currency
| Mars008 wrote:
| We are heading to robotic wars where abilities and cost
| efficiency are the key factors. Like today drones in Ukraine
| war. Attack + defense + automation, + money + production
| hrmtst93837 wrote:
| Cheap sensors look impressive in demos but drift and
| calibration wreck repeatability unless you babysit launches so
| nobody in defense is sweating this yet.
| gmerc wrote:
| But do they drift enough to hit girls schools?
| numbsafari wrote:
| Ask Claude
| redgridtactical wrote:
| Oof
| hrmtst93837 wrote:
| I think the problem sits in the white house, not in the
| sensors.
| mosura wrote:
| For different definitions of cheap though.
|
| While the pure gyro/accelerometer stuff does suffer from
| major problems the improvements in SLAM using just cameras in
| the last 15 years are insane.
| redgridtactical wrote:
| Visual SLAM on a rocket would be wild. The frame rates
| you'd need at those velocities are brutal though -- feature
| tracking falls apart fast when your entire visual field is
| changing at hundreds of m/s. Drones are the sweet spot
| where camera-based nav really shines.
| vidarh wrote:
| They should be sweating, because if the other side can fire
| 100 rockets for $10k that are _close enough_ to not
| immediately and obviously be off target, and you _don 't
| know_ whether a more expensive one with actual explosives is
| hiding within that barrage, you now have 100 targets to try
| to intercept, and suddenly your costs have gone up
| dramatically while the other sides costs has barely moved.
| dgroshev wrote:
| 100 rockets for $10k is not happening. The price floor is
| not dictated by the electronics (which did get cheaper),
| it's dictated by the rest of the system: propulsion,
| warheads, arming and safety, QA, traceability, climate and
| shelf life stability.
|
| Take a look at Raytheon's manufacturing line:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kCCkVAHSzrc That's what it
| takes to have missiles that are nearly guaranteed to
| perform to specification every time. You can stockpile the
| packaged missiles in a non-climate-controlled shed for
| years, replenish them at sea while being showered with salt
| water, subject them to shock of a nearby blast while in a
| VLS, and they will still launch, go up to Mach 13, and
| catch an incoming ballistic missile nearly every time.
|
| Sure, Iran's ballistic missiles are simpler than SM-3, but
| they are still subject to most of the constraints. They
| still need perfectly cast large size solid rocket motors
| that don't crack after being stored for a year, they need
| warheads that only go off when they are supposed to, they
| still need to trace every part for QA, etc. There's a vast
| gap, largely invisible to amateurs, between garage
| prototypes and stockpiled AURs.
| vidarh wrote:
| TFA is literally about a $96 rocket.
|
| > propulsion, warheads, arming and safety, QA,
| traceability, climate and shelf life stability.
|
| You're _entirely_ missing the point.
|
| These do not need to be reliable for the scenario I
| hinted at. They also do not need to be armed.
|
| They need to be _large enough_ that if _one of them_ is a
| higher quality rocket (not part of the $10k) that
| contains actual explosives, you have serious destruction
| on your hand. Maybe something that _looks large enough_
| for that will drive the cost up and we 're talking $20k
| or even $100k instead of $10k.
|
| The precise cost is largely irrelevant, as long as the
| total cost is a tiny fraction of the cost of a missile
| interception.
|
| The point is you'd be multiplying the cost assymmetry by
| forcing a massively outsized response. Because if you
| don't try to intercept them, every future barrage will
| include a real rocket. If you do try to intercept them
| all, you'll be burning through massively expensive
| interceptors to take out a bunch of cheap toys.
|
| If I was ever considering an insurgency, or a war, I'd be
| stocking up on vast quantities of toys, with the intent
| of making every radar constantly lit up by a number of
| possible threats.
| dgroshev wrote:
| > TFA is literally about a $96 rocket
|
| It's a firework-grade rocket with no payload that can't
| even ignite reliably.
|
| To imitate even a TBM or a MBRM, you need similar
| kinematics, even if you're running without a payload.
| Maybe your solid rocket motor would be a touch smaller
| because you're not delivering hundreds of kilograms of
| explosives, but it still has to be large because of the
| rocket equation. With a large motor you're looking at _a
| lot_ of damage if it explodes at the launch point, so you
| need quality casting. You can 't really save much money
| on the motor.
|
| Then, you need a TEL. Because the motor is large, the
| launcher has to be comparable to the real thing. You
| probably don't want to have two different vehicles, so
| you keep the same vehicle; it needs to be armed, driven
| around, and set for launch. Not that different from the
| real thing.
|
| So you've done all of that, and then you realise that
| your empty warheads are too light and the missiles (or
| warheads, if you split) don't interact with the
| atmosphere in the same way as non-decoy missiles do.
| What's worse, modern radars are perfectly capable of
| noticing that and discriminating the decoys. All of that
| effort, and you didn't win anything. Might as well add
| the payload.
|
| The US and the UK spent vast amount of money chasing
| exactly your line of reasoning with nuclear warhead
| decoys. Chevaline is a culmination of the effort, and
| it's retired for 30 years. In the end, relying on decoys
| doesn't really work, they are too expensive.
|
| Fancier CPUs change very little of this calculation,
| because compute is a very little part of the cost to
| begin with.
| mosura wrote:
| > The US and the UK spent vast amount of money chasing
| exactly your line of reasoning with nuclear warhead
| decoys. Chevaline is a culmination of the effort, and
| it's retired for 30 years.
|
| OTOH if you built a successful decoy system that is
| exactly what you would want people to believe.
| pjc50 wrote:
| > price floor is not dictated by the electronics (which
| did get cheaper), it's dictated by the rest of the
| system: propulsion, warheads, arming and safety, QA,
| traceability, climate and shelf life stability.
|
| I wonder how much of that Ukraine is bothering with. Or
| Iran. Certainly Hezbollah are building down to a budget.
| hermitcrab wrote:
| I wonder how many Hezbollah rocket operators get blown up
| by their own rockets? A not insignificant number, I
| suspect.
| coredog64 wrote:
| And then as a follow-up question, how many civilians next
| door to a Hezbollah launch site get blown up by poorly
| manufactured rockets?
| WaxProlix wrote:
| Probably some fraction of the civilians blown up by
| Israeli terrorist phone strikes and bombing raids;
| there's a reason Hezbollah maintains some level of
| support in the region.
| halflife wrote:
| Last week they launched 200 rockets in the span of one
| day, about 40 of those fell inside Lebanon border, that's
| not counting the number of rockets that did not fire at
| all.
| dgroshev wrote:
| Ukraine does bother with all of that when they can afford
| it. I'd even say that FPV drones are the main exception,
| and only because Ukraine was so pressed for immediate
| results and had stockpiles to repurpose. There are only
| so many old RPG warheads you can reuse with a detonator
| made of live wires, and maiming your own launch crews
| because someone made a tiny wrong movement arming their
| thirtieth drone of the day under artillery fire gets old
| fast.
|
| Hezbollah is a terrorist organisation, they don't need
| their contraptions to work reliably. GMLRS serves an
| entirely different purpose to rockets made of repurposed
| telephone poles, and is much more useful for a military
| force.
|
| Also, don't forget the distances. Ukraine is fighting a
| war in their own country, with direct ground lines of
| communication to the frontline. On the other hand, you
| can fit three Ukraines just between Guam and Taiwan.
| cuu508 wrote:
| > maiming your own launch crews because someone made a
| tiny wrong movement arming their thirtieth drone of the
| day
|
| I was thinking about that. Wouldn't you be able to make
| it so the detonator gets armed by the operator remotely
| only once in the air and away?
| dgroshev wrote:
| That's entirely possible, but doing so reliably and
| safely is difficult and expensive enough that for a very
| long time Ukrainians were accepting the risk instead.
|
| The risk appetite countries in existential conflicts have
| is quite different from what we're used to. For example,
| there are plenty of videos of Ukrainian soldiers angle
| grinding cluster munitions open to extract submunitions
| to put on drones, but that's not a strategy that western
| armies can rely on.
| Mars008 wrote:
| > Hezbollah is a terrorist organisation
|
| That depends from which side you are looking. From the
| other side they are patriots and defending their people
| and land, sacrificing their lives. Looks like in NATO you
| haven't seen that. The same in Vietnam, Iraq,.. there is
| a long list of 'terrorists' of this sort. Almost like
| 'suffering minorities'.
| dgroshev wrote:
| It's an objective statement of their tactics, not
| something relative.
|
| Modern precision guided weaponry is meant to selectively
| destroy military targets. WW2 style strategic bombing was
| targeting civilian populations mostly trying to disrupt
| industrial production in support of military action.
| Randomly firing a few unguided rockets into civilian
| population centres can't possibly achieve either. The
| only goal is to provoke terror in the civilian
| population, therefore it's a terrorist organisation.
|
| You can see similar tactics in the "human safari" the
| Russians are running in several Ukrainian population
| centres.
| regularfry wrote:
| Without _necessarily_ disagreeing with your point, the
| driving consideration for Raytheon 's production line is
| arguably not reliability. It's being able to charge the
| customer for perceived reliability. It's very hard to
| know from the outside how much of it is theatre, even if
| earnestly arrived at. There are incentives for these
| things to be expensive.
| esseph wrote:
| The US military is not "new" at this. There are whole
| career professions in the military around just this
| topic.
| kdheiwns wrote:
| If you think shelf life, QA, safety, blah blah blah
| matters when a rocket is 100 bucks, I have just three
| words: you will lose.
|
| The Ukraine war is being fought with a bunch of cheap toy
| style drones dropping grenades everywhere. The US got
| their bases blown to pieces across the Middle East by
| cheap drones that gently float through the air like a
| paper airplane in comparison to absolutely any missile.
|
| And let's not forget. The US had napalm, helicopters,
| bombers, incredible logistics, cutting edge equipment of
| all sorts. Vietnam had a bunch of sticks in a hole
| covered in poop. Those sticks sent Americans crying home
| and we _still_ get movies and games with them crying
| about how bad it was.
|
| In war between great powers, yeah, high tech works
| because it's scary and civilians don't want to have that
| kind of stuff coming home. In a war where civilians are
| being targeted by great powers who terrorize them by
| blowing up schools and hospitals, a lot of people are
| thinking about how many weapons they can make to defend
| their home and for cheap. If America thinks an invasion
| is a good idea, they're going to be bringing their 50
| million dollar tanks face to face with a few $100 toy
| rockets. And those toy rockets will be picking off tanks
| like fish in a barrel while a drone streams it in 4K live
| to the internet. I really do not think American who
| support current happenings are ready for the absolute
| mental torment they're going to endure if this continues.
| computerdork wrote:
| You have a point - cheap drones have changed warfare -
| but you might be simplifying the issue. As some warfare
| experts online have discussed, it isn't that cheap drones
| are the only weapon that is used in Ukraine (or warfare
| in general), it is one option in vast array of options
| based on the situation (although, agreed, it is taking on
| a much bigger significance). Look at the war in Iran.
| They did a pretty standard playbook and use stealth jets
| and cruise missiles to surgically take out air defenses
| in order to gain air dominance. This would be very
| difficult with just cheap drones.
|
| ... but, do agree that cheap weapons are still becoming
| extremely important. Iran is terrorizing the middle east
| and strait of hormuz with cheap drones, so they are
| definitely important. Yeah, in the war of attrition, low
| cost, high-volume options are clearly very important.
| dgroshev wrote:
| It's fairly important to distinguish what kind of drones
| are we talking about [1]. Iran's using Group 3 drones.
|
| The GP is confusing Iran's neighbours not being ready to
| counter group 3 drones with the drones being inevitably
| effective. These drones are by necessity large and slow,
| because they need a lot of energy and aerodynamic
| efficiency to get their range. That means that they are
| vulnerable to cheap counters, which Ukraine is
| demonstrating very convincingly: even though Russia is
| now launching 800+-drone raids, the vast majority is shot
| down.
|
| Even when those drones do get through, they are extremely
| inefficient. It's not just that they can't carry a heavy
| or sophisticated payload (more complex warheads are more
| effective, but way more expensive), the extremely high
| attrition ratio forces the enemy to try to target way too
| many drones per aimpoint. Instead of serving a few
| hundred aimpoints, the 800-strong raid is forced to
| concentrate on just a few, otherwise most aimpoints will
| get no hits whatsoever.
|
| But also the only reason 800-strong raids can even be
| launched is Ukraine lacking the capability to interdict
| the launches. 800 group 3 drones have an enormous
| logistics and manufacturing tail, which a Western force
| would have no problem destroying way before the raid can
| be launched. For example, Iran in its current state can't
| launch such raids. So in practice Iran's neighbours would
| need to intercept only a handful of drones, which is
| hardly an insurmountable challenge.
|
| [1]: https://mwi.westpoint.edu/wp-
| content/uploads/2024/05/FL1.jpg
| srean wrote:
| How resistant are these drones to electronic
| countermeasures ?
| dgroshev wrote:
| GPS denial is a mixed bag. After about two years of
| efforts and counter-efforts, the Russians seemingly
| managed to build GPS receivers that are pretty resistant
| to jamming.
| esseph wrote:
| > Iran's neighbours would need to intercept only a
| handful of drones, which is hardly an insurmountable
| challenge.
|
| It's a big challenge when you run out of interceptors...
| dgroshev wrote:
| We're absolutely not running out of APKWS. They are
| manufactured by tens of thousands, and Hydra 70s are even
| more numerous.
| esseph wrote:
| APKWS is great for certain drone classes, but we don't
| enough enough launching systems tied to detection and
| targeting systems fielded.
|
| Need more range for larger drones.
| dgroshev wrote:
| I'm just not sure what to even say when you're both so
| assertive and completely wrong. Please stop relying on
| twitter/reddit to inform your takes.
|
| The war in Ukraine is being fought with all tiers of
| systems, ranging from Zircons and PAC-3 on the high end
| to booby traps on the low end. All of them are essential,
| and shortcomings on any of the tiers is ruthlessly
| exploited by the other side. Saying that it's only the
| small drones that matter betrays over-reliance on the
| gory FPV kill footage.
|
| "QA, safety, blah blah blah" get implemented on every
| level as soon as it's feasible. You can just look at
| photos from Yelabuga and see how their assembly lines are
| not fundamentally different from Raytheon's. Ukraine is
| standardising their drone manufacturing. This is
| inevitable, because faulty munitions lead to
|
| - killed friendly soldiers if the munitions explode pre-
| launch
|
| - wasted logistic resources if they don't launch
|
| - wasted time and targeting opportunity or friendly units
| not getting fire support when they fail after launch
|
| The cost of faults is severe and much higher than just
| the cost of the munition itself.
|
| It seems that you're misinformed about the real cost of
| modern FPVs used in Ukraine. Reports of sub-$1000 drones
| are years out of date and heavily relied on salvaged
| munitions, but there are only so many RPG warheads you
| can get for "free". Current FPVs are heavier, more
| capable, and cost a few thousand dollars. Further, it's
| reported that it takes _dozens_ of FPVs to kill a single
| "hedgehog tank", which brings the total cost of one kill
| to a rough parity with "classic", "expensive" systems
| like the Javelin, except Javelins can be carried by a
| mobile squad, and launching FPVs requires a dedicated
| immobile unit with a long logistical tail.
|
| Don't mistake forces not being ready to counter low-tier
| threats immediately with the threats being impossible to
| counter. Group 3 drones are very effectively countered in
| Ukraine, to the extent that it takes hundreds to deliver
| maybe a few TLAMs worth of payload to the target. There
| are mature systems being rolled out right now across
| western armies, from various gun-based solutions to
| APKWS. Group 2 drones are decimated with cheap anti-air
| drones. Group 1 drones are being handled with APSes,
| which work pretty well even in urban environments, as
| Israel has (very unfortunately) demonstrated lately.
| littlestymaar wrote:
| So much this. Reliability and durability only matters
| because the thing costs a million dollar a piece. When
| you have stuff with a mere 5-digits price tag or less,
| you simply don't care if half of them miss their mark or
| doesn't fire 10% of the time.
| dgroshev wrote:
| Half of munitions missing means doubling the logistical
| burden of delivering the munitions to where they need to
| be employed. The trucks/plains/ships that carry your
| munitions need to be fuelled and protected, too, so the
| expense is super-linear, especially when it's a distant
| war and not a war fought on the country's own soil, like
| in Ukraine.
|
| Cheap munitions sometimes explode before they are
| launched, killing crews and destroying platforms.
|
| Cheap munitions mean that CAS is a roulette. You waited
| for ten minutes for a support fire mission? Sorry, wait
| for ten more, whatever we launched has failed. Or maybe
| you're dead because the munition has hit you instead.
|
| Cheap munitions can pin you down. Those cheap FPV drones
| that are supposedly cheaper than Javelins require
| dedicated immobile units to launch and guide to targets.
| Javelins are organic to infantry squads.
|
| Cheap munitions are either very expensive or impossible.
| There's no cheap anti-ballistic missile and no cheap
| missile that can sink a warship in the Taiwan strait when
| launched[*] from Guam.
|
| [*]: alright alright an LRASM would need to be flown
| closer by an F-35 but the point still stands
| smileysteve wrote:
| It's even worse when your goal is commercial viability of
| carrying a relatively flammable liquid.
|
| Tankers moving at a slow speed, across a narrow strait.
|
| They don't have to sink to not be commercially viable; a
| few deck fires negatively impact your days at sea without
| incident.
| sofixa wrote:
| > The Ukraine war is being fought with a bunch of cheap
| toy style drones dropping grenades everywhere
|
| This hasn't been true for 3-4 years now, most of the
| combat drones being used now are purpose built kamikaze
| drones. Notably the Russians are using Iranian designed
| Shahed 136s, while the Ukranians have the similar Liutyi.
| Among many, many, many other models in various roles.
|
| > And let's not forget. The US had napalm, helicopters,
| bombers, incredible logistics, cutting edge equipment of
| all sorts. Vietnam had a bunch of sticks in a hole
| covered in poop. Those sticks sent Americans crying home
| and we still get movies and games with them crying about
| how bad it was.
|
| While the Americans absolutely lost in Vietnam really
| bad, the Vietnamese regular army (PAVN) was extremely
| well equipped with some of the latest Soviet and Chinese
| equipment. Hanoi was one of the most densely defended
| anti-air spaces in the world (because the Americans
| insisted on trying, _again_ , to kill civiliasn to get
| them to surrender, which never works), with top notch
| systems. The PAVN had mechanised batallions with tanks,
| armoured personnel carriers, anti-tank missiles, even
| amphibious tanks. The air force also had pretty good
| quality fighters.
|
| The VietCong on the other hand was a guerilla force
| equipped only with light and mobile equipment.
| tgsovlerkhgsel wrote:
| > propulsion, warheads, arming and safety, QA,
| traceability, climate and shelf life stability.
|
| The further down the list you go, the more optional the
| requirements get in a sufficiently dire scenario.
|
| Shelf life doesn't matter if you are firing them as
| quickly as you can make them, especially if you actually
| can make them as quickly as you need them because they're
| so simple. QA and traceability may matter less if you
| just accept that you'll occasionally lose a launcher, and
| even occasionally have a stray missile land in someone's
| living room because that's better than having a non-stray
| Shahed in said living room.
|
| In terms of safety, I bet it'll still beat "cutting open
| existing munitions and literally duct taping random other
| fuzes to them", which seems to be the bar for "good
| enough".
| dgroshev wrote:
| I don't understand your point. Sure, Ukraine can cut a
| few corners that western militaries are unwilling to cut.
| They still can't produce a domestic ballistic missile at
| scale, because it's genuinely hard, and simple terror
| weapons like Qassams are useless for militaries. "100
| rockets for $10k" is off by orders of magnitude.
| edmundsauto wrote:
| I think the point is to look at the US requirements
| compared to the cost and explore ways that a country
| could gain strategic advantages by building objectively
| worse products. (But cheaper/faster, gaining an
| asymmetric advantage in the offense/defense scaling)
|
| I used to think the US dollars were well spent, because
| we felt it was morally important to deliver precision
| strikes which had higher cost requirements. Recent
| evidence demonstrates that is insufficient when the
| wetware making the targeting decisions is faulty.
| Animats wrote:
| _Shelf life doesn 't matter if you are firing them as
| quickly as you can make them, especially if you actually
| can make them as quickly as you need them because they're
| so simple._
|
| Right. High-volume users can skip the thermal batteries
| with decades-long shelf life, and just spot-weld a few
| AAA batteries inside the weapon. Just stencil the thing
| "Best if used by DATE". Good for a year or two at least.
| Skip the anti-corrosion stuff and ship it in consumer-
| grade shrink wrap. Ukraine ships drones to the field in
| lightweight cardboard boxes, not rugged weapons
| containers.
|
| Many US weapons are really old designs. The Patriot went
| into production in 1980. The Stinger went into service in
| 1981. There's been progress since then. Consumer-grade
| parts can do most of what's needed.
| dgroshev wrote:
| AAA batteries don't have the current. Li-Ion is too fussy
| and has a pretty high self-discharge.
|
| Ukraine can afford the cardboard boxes because they are
| fighting in their own country. The US has an ocean to
| cross.
|
| Ukraine can get away with short shelf life because they
| are at war _right now_. The US has to stockpile because
| the supply chain has to run at some capacity in peace
| time to be able to ramp up quickly when needed, and
| discarding the produced ammunition after a year would be
| incredibly wasteful.
|
| Neither Ukraine nor Russia can defeat each others' air
| defence networks. The US has a lot of experience doing
| just that, while successfully defending against ballistic
| missiles. High tier capabilities matter.
|
| The Patriot in 1980 is a very different system from the
| Patriot that is fielded today. Between PAC-2 and PAC-3,
| AN/MPQ-65A and LTAMDS it's a cutting edge air defence
| system. The progress is constantly incorporated.
|
| The Stinger is a bit old, but mostly because the US
| doctrine has few uses for it. Regardless, NGSRI is
| coming.
| bigiain wrote:
| > AAA batteries don't have the current.
|
| Triple As might not, but back in the day plenty of rc
| planes flew just fine for an hour or three using 4 AA
| batteries to run the receiver and servos..
| torginus wrote:
| You can calibrate any sensor, its just a manufacturing step,
| and while cheap ones may be inaccurate and drift over time,
| I'm pretty sure the good enough ones (which cost tens of
| dollars, not fractions of a dollar) are accurate enough to
| work for the seconds-to-minutes flight time of a rocket like
| this.
| redgridtactical wrote:
| For a sub-minute flight the drift budget is actually pretty
| forgiving -- a MEMS gyro drifts maybe 1-3 deg/sec, and if
| you're fusing with accelerometer data you really just need
| "which way is up" and "am I still pointed at the target." A
| $5 IMU can hold that for tens of seconds.
|
| Where you're right is repeatability. Mil-spec works the same
| on launch 1 and launch 500 across temperature extremes.
| Consumer MEMS you'd need to characterize each unit
| individually -- fine for a demo, impractical at any scale.
| regularfry wrote:
| Hm. Is it, though? If what you wanted to do was produce a
| large batch of calibrated IMUs, building a rig to do so
| wouldn't be an enormous undertaking.
|
| Or do you mean to characterise the assembled vehicle?
| nippoo wrote:
| Good $3 MEMS gyros are about 100x better than that now -
| look at anything new made by Invensense in the past couple
| years. And their drift is pretty Gaussian-distributed, so
| the error scales as sqrt(n). If you combine 8+ of them on
| one board you can get about 5deg/hour stability...
| Mars008 wrote:
| Cheap sensors are the future ;) onboard ML can help with
| signals interpretation.
| shrubble wrote:
| Consumer GPS chips are specifically nerfed for using them in
| rockets; they give erroneous readings on purpose if altitude is
| above a certain height and/or if speeds exceed a certain speed.
| That's likely why the mid-course correction software uses other
| methods.
| bragr wrote:
| The restrictions on GPS prevent ballistic missiles, not
| MANPADs. Typical limits are 515 m/s and 18,000 meters (try
| using your phone's GPS on a commercial flight, it works fine
| near a window). Update rate is probably the biggest issue
| with GPS and MANPADs.
| V99 wrote:
| What you are likely thinking of is the "selective
| availability" system, which intentionally provided slightly
| inaccurate data to civilian clients, while military receivers
| could decrypt the most accurate info. But this has not been
| used for many years now.
|
| Other than that, GPS is a one-way system, it does not know
| you exist, how fast your receiver is moving or "give"
| different information to one client vs another.
|
| Even if it did, this is essentially a toy and moving slower
| and lower than a general aviation plane.
|
| It uses accelerometers and other sensors because they can be
| sampled and integrated hundreds of times a second. The $5 gps
| module is 9600 baud serial and provides one update/second (or
| maybe 5/sec depending on which part number you pick).
| BenjiWiebe wrote:
| No, he's thinking of the "CoCom limits". It's built into
| the receiver.
| ninjagoo wrote:
| There's a lot of room within those 18km/59000ft and
| 1000kts/1200mph limits.
| nekusar wrote:
| Chinese GPS chips dont have those restrictions.
|
| I even have 1 that can remove up to 8 active jamming signals.
|
| Gotta love what you can buy for $20
| ninjagoo wrote:
| It would be interesting to see if those are only for
| external sale vs restricted for sale within China.
|
| If China allows those unrestricted chips to be sold
| internationally but not domestically it would be a
| strategic long-term decision, I would think. Destabilize
| the neighbors but not themselves.
|
| The more likely reason is that their government has simply
| not gotten around to restricting it.
| the__alchemist wrote:
| > A few years ago this would have required an IMU that cost
| more than this entire build.
|
| Are you sure about this? MEMS IMUs have been popular and cheap
| for ~10-15 years.
| danmaz74 wrote:
| More than the electronics, I would be curious about the
| performance of 3d-printed plastic parts on a rocket. Are they
| strong enough?
| regularfry wrote:
| People have been doing 3d printed model rockets for a while
| now. With no payload they experience higher acceleration than
| this will.
| hermitcrab wrote:
| 3d printed PLA and spiral wound cardboard is generally fine
| for hobby rockets, until they start going supersonic - then
| you need metal.
|
| I'm not sure the launch tube could withstand the heat of the
| rocket exhaust though. Although that might depend what it is
| printed with.
| mothballed wrote:
| Owning a system designed for surface to air weapon carries life
| imprisonment any USA, without any intent for violence, just
| simple possession or conspiracy to possess[]. Doesn't even
| matter if you have an NFA stamp, there is no exception except
| if it's done with authorization and behalf of the government.
|
| Merely having a device intended to _guide_ the rocket is also
| the same penalty.
|
| [] https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2332g
| blincoln wrote:
| Seems like the quick fix is to rebrand this from "MANPADS" to
| "anti-tank", right? Then it would just be a standard
| destructive device?
| gos9 wrote:
| AI slop comment
| dzhiurgis wrote:
| Bingo. Against guidelines.
| tzury wrote:
| Given the navigation is done by the cameras (not GPS) you will
| also need to do some work with the second repository (by the same
| guy)-
|
| https://github.com/novatic14/Distributed-Camera-Node-Trackin...
| chewbacha wrote:
| Sounds a lot more like a missile than a rocket.
| mikkupikku wrote:
| The HN headline is very euphemistic, but his own published
| materials aren't. He's openly saying it's a missile.
| alansaber wrote:
| Kid knows how to advertise
| amelius wrote:
| Yes to three-letter agencies.
| roysting wrote:
| I hope the kid is aware that he better not commit anything even
| remotely like a crime, because they will try to stitch him up
| quick.
| jofzar wrote:
| God, I feel like I am going to be on a list after clicking that
| link.
|
| The future is scary
| roysting wrote:
| What the "government" has in store for you is way scarier. You
| just don't know it any more than a cow on a pasture knows what
| a slaughter house is, yet.
| realo wrote:
| But in Canada we ...
|
| Oh shit. You're right.
| nbernard wrote:
| > God, I feel like I am going to be on a list after clicking
| that link.
|
| It's a poor life that doesn't put you on a few such lists!
| doodlebugging wrote:
| But you get more followers and that's the goal today isn't it?
| You have to take the good with the bad. No one is categorizing
| the follower ranks by "good guys" versus "bad guys" so you
| never know when one of your "admirers" is only there to monitor
| you in case you get out of line.
| niemandhier wrote:
| A certain kind of mind deals with stress by devising solutions,
| even if one cannot put them into action.
|
| Seeing people in Israel, Iran, the general Middle East as well as
| the Ukraine live in fear of drone strikes might have incentivised
| this person to come up with a potential way to deal with these
| threats.
|
| Cheap air defense would equilibrate drone warfare again:
|
| Currently drones are much cheaper that the systems that take them
| down.
| mikkupikku wrote:
| MANPADS can be effective against large drones, but definitely
| not against the kind of FOV shit we see in Ukraine. They were
| originally designed to kill helicopters and low flying
| aircraft, and I'm guessing that's still his design intent.
| tamimio wrote:
| >FOV
|
| FPV.
|
| But I really hate the whole weaponization of these FPV drones
| (as opposed to the bigger fixed wings ones), not just they
| ruined the fun hobby that a lot enjoy, but also increased the
| prices for the parts. Before 2022 whenever I talk about
| drones everyone is enthusiastic about them, what benefits
| they can bring like drone deliveries and all, after that, you
| get a hostile reaction or the government putting you on some
| watchlist.
| jacquesm wrote:
| You can hate it, but at the same time, without it Ukraine
| would have been overrun by now and I think that trumps your
| feelings about your hobby.
| tamimio wrote:
| That's not true at all, the success rates of these fpv
| drones are around 1 to 100, ie out of 100 failed attempt
| you get a hit, but you only see the successful ones, and
| those aren't my words, this is straight up from a
| Canadian soldier in Ukraine (1). And you can actually ask
| any hobbyist, they will tell you how prone to
| failure/crashes/loss these fpv small drones are, after
| all, they are meant to be for fun.
|
| (1) https://youtu.be/K8o4afysnBg?t=766
| jacquesm wrote:
| I wasn't talking about the success rate for any
| individual drone, but about the cumulative effect. And
| the success rate of individual missions depends very
| strongly on which part of the front you are looking at
| and what kind of missions are flown.
|
| Just to give you one figure: estimates are that between
| 1000 and 1500 Shaheds have been downed by interceptors
| during last February. That's not a 100% kill rate but it
| definitely isn't 1% either. And they're getting better
| every week.
| niemandhier wrote:
| My understanding is that for the civilians in Ukraine Shaheed
| style drones are the danger.
| jacquesm wrote:
| They are but the Ukrainians are making some serious inroads
| into the effectiveness of those drones and if they keep
| that up for a little while longer they will have near
| perfect ability to shoot them down. Essentially they've
| built hunter-killer drones that are sent off in the general
| direction of Shahed that then either succeed or fail in
| their mission. That success rate has been very steadily
| climbing over the last couple of months.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sting_(drone)
| koshergweilo wrote:
| Ah that puts into context some of the headlines I've seen
| about Ukraine making arms deals with other countries.
|
| https://english.kyodonews.net/articles/-/72301
|
| It is very odd to see the defense industry live up to its
| name for once
| Svoka wrote:
| So far russia launched over 57 000 Iranian/inspired shahed
| drones. They are like 6ft long drones with 40+ lbs payload
| with couple hundreds of miles of range.
|
| USA/NATO/allies heavily rely on Patriot AA system. Even if
| you disregard the prohibitive 100x cost difference, there are
| about 2500 Patriot compatible PAC missiles.
|
| This is why gulf states are scrambling to get their hands on
| cheap alternatives - Ukraine manages to shoot down over 90%
| of all drones heading their way, usually it is over 400 per
| day in big waves.
| sschueller wrote:
| I would invert that statement.
|
| The fact that home made drones can cause such havoc to even the
| best funded military is an equalizer when the military with all
| the power is actively trying to completely eliminate the
| otherside.
|
| There are no home made devices a Gazan can build that can
| protect from a 2000lbs bomb.
| getcrunk wrote:
| I watched a YouTube video the other day about how the usa tracks
| missle launches globally. I would assume they have to pass a
| minimum threshold of power/heat/energy to be detectable.
|
| Let's all pray this toy project, if readily upgradable, is also
| trackable and well ... the way we keep law and order is by actual
| policing and prosecuting. So hopefully this doesn't get out of
| hand.
|
| Very impressive, but very troubling.
| stavros wrote:
| Isn't it obvious that, if one person can do it, many more can
| do it as well, and probably have? It's not like they'll put it
| on GitHub.
| lm28469 wrote:
| This thing doesn't do anything a launcher from the 70s couldn't
| do.
|
| Global detection is for balistic missiles, not things launched
| by human portable devices
| nik282000 wrote:
| Right now, today, the US government and it's three letter
| agencies are being run by a club of human trafficking
| peodophiles and rapists. Not individual, isolated, crimes. An
| organized group of very twisted people, having 'immigrants'
| rounded up and killed, pushing women back into the 1920s, and
| trying to make anyone who strays from heteronormative a
| criminal.
|
| Having some independent developers in the defence market is not
| necessarily a bad thing.
| mirekrusin wrote:
| John Connor.
| neatze wrote:
| Many mention ITAR or some other issue, nothing about this project
| is even close to ITAR (as far I understand), connecting camera to
| rocket using it as guidance will get in trouble most likely, if
| not mistake only thing allowed is using camera to AIM at sun.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/@LafayetteSystems is similar project,
| also by actual defense contractor, and less opensource.
| mikkupikku wrote:
| MANPADS are certainly covered by ITAR. It could probably be
| effectively argued by his lawyers that what he has created
| isn't truly MANPADS but rather just an edgy toy that
| superficially resembles a weapon system but isn't actually
| capable of performing as one. Maybe that would work, but I
| think his chance of getting dragged into the legal system for
| this or for some chickenshit like weed possession are very
| high, particularly if the media at large picks up this story.
| mothballed wrote:
| https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2332g states that
| just having a system "intended to launch or guide a rocked or
| missile described in... [description of MANPAD type rocket]"
| carries life imprisonment. He calls it a manpad and then
| shows a system intended to launch it.
|
| There is no consideration in the law whether he actually
| plans to use it or ever meant any violence, nor any
| consideration of whether it violates ITAR.
|
| As someone who has a lot of interest in weapons law, this is
| probably about _the only_ kind of weapon that can 't be even
| legally contemplated in the USA, worst case for almost
| anything else you can get an NFA stamp. The USA is absolutely
| paranoid about yielding their air power so they come down
| like a ton of bricks against anyone that might want to defend
| against that.
| charcircuit wrote:
| So design a system for launching test vehicles?
| neatze wrote:
| the links says explosives + guidance system, but guidance
| system still allowed in hobby project as long aim toward
| sun (eg. sun is the target, same for stabilization), I
| think having horizontal stabilization hitting an target
| would be equal to breaking law.
| numpad0 wrote:
| The theme is guidance systems. Especially guidance
| computers. That's the big big big no-no. I'm surprised this
| still hasn't been taken down and house flashbanged and all.
| isoprophlex wrote:
| This is obviously a missile, and I'm not well-versed in weapons
| tech, but won't this need a camera to actually track and take out
| a flying object? So far I just see gps and barometric sensing...
|
| Also 3D printing and some electronics, ok fine, but where do you
| get the rocket propellant? That seems at least as critical as the
| software and sensing side of things...
| icegreentea2 wrote:
| Yeah, this current project uses external sensors (a camera
| array/grid) for guidance.
|
| He's using potassium nitrate/sugar as his rocket fuel.
| amelius wrote:
| Watch the video. He makes his own propellant.
| tamimio wrote:
| > rocket propellant
|
| You can homemade it, kno3+sugar
| hermitcrab wrote:
| You can also blow your hands off, blind yourself and/or burn
| down the building. So be very careful if you try this. Note
| it is illegal to make your own solid fuel motors in some
| countries (you need a special license in the UK).
| alexnewman wrote:
| So you are going to see the following cope
|
| Coper: But it's sensors are so low end it will never be reliable
| enough. Response: We can use AI to make up for low quality
| sensors, we can add a camera if we want it to be as reliable as
| self driving cars for a small amount of money Coper: AI what a
| joke that doesn't work Response: It's live in production Coper:
| But you can't fit a big enough payload Response: Lets see
| holografix wrote:
| Fascinating, is miniaturisation and "democratisation" of
| offensive capabilities via 3d printing and consumer tech going to
| impact defensive capabilities as well?
|
| Are we going to see foot troops carry one of these strapped to
| their backpacks and launched autonomously to counteract incoming
| drones?
| tamimio wrote:
| Glad he's in the US, I remember reading in Canada few months ago
| students got criminally charged for building and testing an anti-
| drone system.
| fph wrote:
| So basically a homing missile?
| relaxing wrote:
| I'm waiting for the open source EW project that attacks the
| uplink. Now that would be a fun competition.
|
| And then the rocket maker pivot back to control by wire, as in
| the drone sphere. DIY TOW when?
| kuberwastaken wrote:
| This is the coolest thing I've seen all week, possibly this month
| systima wrote:
| Impressive! Well done
| phplovesong wrote:
| Its scary that you can whip something like this in under 100
| bucks. Add a small warhead and you got a small missile.
|
| Like we see in Iran, with trumps idiotic war the US cant even
| protect its allies and own soldiers, even with a whopping 1.5
| trillion budget.
| stuckkeys wrote:
| The budget is not the issue...the idiots running things behind
| that budget are the problem.
| tzury wrote:
| There are 2 short segments in the video showing the actual
| performance and thus far it is a complete [1] failure [2].
|
| The guy has a talent, and he put together a nice prototype based
| on OpenRocket [3], but with all due respect, this is not a
| rocket, and you are not going to win any war with this toy, even
| if all your enemy has are rocks thrown at you from pretty much
| similar distance.
|
| The remix of computer games / Ukraine / Martin Luther King /
| Vietnam / David Koresh just adding more to the amateur spirit and
| confusion.
|
| [1] https://youtu.be/DDO2EvXyncE [2]
| https://youtu.be/DDO2EvXyncE?t=280 [3] https://openrocket.info/
| tamimio wrote:
| And that's ok if it's failing to do the job as intended,
| learning is acquired, and it looks fun to build, I am in the
| field and I find it great homemade concept.
|
| Realistically, I doubt there's ANY system out there will be
| able to counter small weaponized drones that are flown manually
| let alone with AI, you might have some workarounds, but never a
| real counter.
| tzury wrote:
| "let alone with AI" what's falling into the AI category here
| perhaps is the key question, since microseconds counts, and
| LLM are very slow!
|
| Even the fastest "real-time" LLM frameworks currently report
| sub-second latencies around 120ms. This is fine for high-
| level mission planning (e.g., "fly to the red house") but too
| slow to prevent a drone from hitting a tree at 50mph (80
| KM/h)[1]
|
| Whilst the Shahed-136 kamikaze drone typically flies at a
| maximum speed of around 185 km/h (roughly 115 mph or 100
| knots).
|
| [1] https://arxiv.org/html/2602.19534v1 [2]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HESA_Shahed_136
| ninjagoo wrote:
| > "let alone with AI" what's falling into the AI category
| here perhaps is the key question, since microseconds
| counts, and LLM are very slow!
|
| LLMs (Large Language Models) are far from the only type of
| AI around. It's a pretty broad field, and there are real-
| time AI systems, for example, self-driving cars, which have
| the response times you're thinking of. [1]
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_Intelligence:_
| A_Mod...
| tzury wrote:
| hence: "what's falling into the AI category here perhaps
| is the key question"
|
| YOLO is a good example for something that can work.
|
| https://docs.ultralytics.com/models/yolov8/
| lukan wrote:
| "Realistically, I doubt there's ANY system out there will be
| able to counter small weaponized drones that are flown
| manually "
|
| Why would lasers not work?
|
| Those cheap drones are made from plastic, if you have a laser
| powerful enough and a target guidance system (like a camera
| and a PI) - then you would just need enough of them.
| condensedcrab wrote:
| At long distances the small cross section of the drone
| requires tight focusing (expensive optics) or a high power,
| preferably pulsed laser (expensive laser) or both.
|
| Not impossible but many times more expensive than the drone
| tjoff wrote:
| Expensive is fine since it is reusable.
| rdtsc wrote:
| At some point it itself becomes a target. It has to be
| able to get almost 100% kills, otherwise the enemy can
| swarm it with cheap drones, destroy the expensive
| installation, then continue as before.
| tjoff wrote:
| Sure, but it needs many "many times" for that to be a
| factor.
|
| And even in the case it could be useful as an addition to
| or paired with a tank etc.
| rdtsc wrote:
| Many times more is about what it comes out to. There are
| some companies selling laser defense systems but they are
| many times more than cheap FPV drones with grenades
| attached.
| tamimio wrote:
| Lasers won't _effectively_ work, it's a two part equation,
| detection and targeting. To neutralize a target using a
| ground-based laser, you need an enormous power, and still
| it won't penetrate a high distance /altitude in the sky,
| environment factors also to be considered. The detection
| part is even harder, these small 8in drones are almost
| impossible to detect unless you can hear it, aka it's over,
| because they can fly at 250km/h, too small to be visually
| detected, acoustic sensors will fail to detect them, and
| radar will miss it as a false negative since it's the size
| of a bird. I have seen some systems trying to combine all
| that to detect them plus AI for flying pattern detection,
| but they are far from being reliable in practical
| applications.
| lukan wrote:
| The small weaponized drones do not fly 250 km/h.
| Aspos wrote:
| Yes, but they still approach in just a few seconds.
| tamimio wrote:
| They can fly at 350kph, check this redbull drone that was
| used in Olympics, acceleration of 100-300kph in just two
| seconds faster than any F1 car. Now add a bit of payload
| and you get the 200-250 speed range, still crazy fast.
|
| https://www.redbull.com/id-id/worlds-fastest-filming-
| drone-b...
| ndriscoll wrote:
| Unless you mean it just can't detect objects that small,
| my guess is we'll see things calibrate toward a lot more
| birds being cooked in active war zones vs drones with
| explosives being let through.
| ljlolel wrote:
| Can radar distinguish from the bird since it's moving
| 250km/h?
| tzury wrote:
| 8 inches drone cannot carry much of explosive at all. In
| order to dump 10 kg load of explosives, you need an
| "agricultural drone" one that can carry 45kg, since the
| additional mechanisms and their batteries (and the
| drone's backup batteries) are heavy.
|
| Those are bigger and noisier.
|
| DJI ARGAS Series are good starting point.
|
| https://ag.dji.com/mobile
| tamimio wrote:
| Last week I was flying the argas! But I think you are
| misunderstanding, these are suicide drones not dropping
| the payload kind, and 8in can very well carry a deadly
| explosive, mostly against personnel, vehicles ones you
| get it bigger but not by much, from 12-18in max.
| tzury wrote:
| I see.
|
| Nowadays I fly nothing, but I do see them Iranian drones
| get intercepted from my porch in Abu Dhabi.
|
| The fact I am watching it and not panicking anymore tells
| about how cooked I am.
| torginus wrote:
| Lasers imo don't really have IRL advantages over machine
| guns and rockets, and their line of sight nature is a huge
| limitation.
| lukan wrote:
| Laser:
|
| - are cheap to shoot - do not fall on someones head if
| they miss (unlike firing bullets and rockets at a drone
| that will come down again) - do hit the target
| immediately if aimed right
|
| Problems with lasers are, cooling, power consumption
| limiting mobile use - and indeed targeting and fog and
| clouds.
| hermitcrab wrote:
| And rain.
| rdtsc wrote:
| At very short distances and with a lot of power, perhaps.
| Despite what we see in movies laser beams diverge. And then
| with distance it's harder to track moving objects precisely
| to hit the same spot long enough to melt it.
|
| At that point might as well spend the money to use a
| kinetic weapon with basic tracking and ballistic
| calculations.
| chatmasta wrote:
| Kinetic weapons pose greater risk to bystanders.
| robotresearcher wrote:
| Powerful enough laser and accurate enough targeting system
| is easy to say, but not easypeasy to do. Dumping thousands
| of Joules on a tiny moving target is much easier to do with
| explosives.
| hermitcrab wrote:
| The practicalities of using lasers are covered in some
| depth on the Naval Gazing blog. First part here:
|
| https://www.navalgazing.net/Lasers-at-Sea-Part-1
| skybrian wrote:
| I don't know if it will work, but here's a startup that seems
| to be building an AI-controlled shotgun:
|
| https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/9-mothers-corporation
|
| Given the war in Ukraine, wanting to build such things is
| certainly understandable. But still, this is the stuff of
| nightmares.
| wombatpm wrote:
| David Suaez in _Kill Decision_ had swarms of small single
| shot drones with the targeting intelligence of '00 camera.
| Identify a face, fly towards it, fire when close. It was an
| implementation of quantity has a quality all its own.
| danmaz74 wrote:
| > Realistically, I doubt there's ANY system out there will be
| able to counter small weaponized drones that are flown
| manually let alone with AI
|
| What kind of systems are you thinking about? Jet airplanes
| for sure are completely safe from small drones.
| chrisweekly wrote:
| "Jet airplanes for sure are completely safe from small
| drones."
|
| That feels like a bold and unsupported assertion. Ask a
| pilot how they'd feel about takeoffs or landings through
| airspace filled with adversarial drones.
| fragmede wrote:
| maybe in the air, but I seem to recall the Ukrainians being
| successful at attacking Russian planes on the ground.
| rdtsc wrote:
| > Jet airplanes for sure are completely safe from small
| drones.
|
| Until they land then, due to their cost, they become a very
| juicy target to aim for.
| 15155 wrote:
| A flock of unlucky geese can knock out a jet turbine, how
| is this a "for sure" conclusion?
| ninjagoo wrote:
| > Realistically, I doubt there's ANY system out there will be
| able to counter small weaponized drones that are flown
| manually let alone with AI, you might have some workarounds,
| but never a real counter.
|
| Weaponized drones (say D_A) can be countered by other
| weaponized drones (say D_B), equally cheap or cheaper than
| D_A because the D_A is usually targeting something larger (so
| more payload) and typically has a longer range. D_B only
| needs to wreck D_A at a shorter defensive range. That's what
| Ukraine is doing.
|
| You can also use drone swarms with coordinated action so that
| each drone in the swarm is only targeting one other drone,
| and automatic re-targeting if one node misses. [1]
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swarm_robotics
| maratc wrote:
| > equally cheap or cheaper
|
| I doubt it, as D_A's target is stationary (and could be
| reduced to GPS coords) while D_B's target is moving.
| ninjagoo wrote:
| > I doubt it, as D_A's target is stationary (and could be
| reduced to GPS coords) while D_B's target is moving.
|
| It's a good point, though I should point out that GPS
| denial is assumed in those sort of contexts as a first
| countermeasure so D_A likely has alternative targeting,
| and that smaller drones can move faster with less energy
| storage, which itself requires less weight, compounding
| the benefits of being smaller.
| sdenton4 wrote:
| However, D_A is moving, while D_B can be stationary.
| echoangle wrote:
| How is a stationary defense drone going to defend from a
| incoming attacking drone?
| echoangle wrote:
| And also the attacker can send 100 drones without any
| real targeting at all and 10 proper expensive drones and
| you need to send up 110 defenders which need to be able
| to track flying drones. Being the attacker will always be
| easier.
| FrojoS wrote:
| The good old "The Bomber always gets through" debate from
| 1932.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_bomber_will_always_get_
| thr...
| thombat wrote:
| He wasn't wrong in that claim: for the most part the
| bombers did get through, especially at night. The problem
| was that their effectiveness once "through" was far lower
| than the bombing proponents had claimed, due in
| particular to the lack of precision, but also the
| resilience of both targets and the enemy population.
| tamimio wrote:
| Couldn't post earlier seems HN is rate limited :/
|
| hardest issue as I mentioned in another comment is
| detection. Now on using other drones to counter a drone,
| there are other issues, as I built and tested some before,
| assuming you got the detection part done. The first one is
| guidance and correction mid-air, flying manually won't
| really be practical due to the need for an extraordinary
| flying skills, which can't be relied on in the field, the
| second part is the speed, you need to ALWAYS make sure the
| interceptor is faster to catch it up, third is the weight,
| I disagree about the payload part you mentioned, I have
| seen videos of light weight drones failing to wreck bigger
| ones, if you are relying on collision alone. Additionally,
| the telemetry/video/C&C for the interceptor, if jamming is
| already in place, your counter won't work either.
|
| The swarm will require a low latency comms link,
| centralized or decentralized, if the area is jammed, it
| won't work. i have built a self-healing decentralized
| system using cellular in each drone, but that's useless if
| the network is down to start with.
|
| So they might work in a very specific use case, but not an
| ultimate solution to counter them.
| ninjagoo wrote:
| While it [1] doesn't talk about swarms, it has some
| details - $1k - $2.5k price, 170mph speed, backpackable,
| thermal imaging, radar, ai, manual control (fiber-optic I
| think, based on other sources and battlefield pictures).
|
| This [2] talks about swarmer software used by Ukraine.
|
| $1k-$2.5k gives a lot of room for tech to avoid jamming -
| ir or visible light, ultrasound, for in-swarm comms.
|
| And I wonder if the battery itself could be weaponized.
| We have seen that a very thin layer of the right material
| can turn phones/pagers very destructive.
|
| [1] https://www.twz.com/news-features/ukrainian-
| companies-prohib...
|
| [2] https://united24media.com/war-in-ukraine/ukrainian-
| drone-swa...
| torginus wrote:
| From what I can tell, Ukrainians are having some success with
| converting guns into automatic turrets that can track and
| shoot down drones via sensors, and the rifle-equivalent of
| birdshot.
| mikkupikku wrote:
| Yes, I don't think this project is a serious threat as a
| weapon, it's more interesting if viewed as a politically
| provocative stunt, to get people thinking about the
| relationship between technology and war.
| make3 wrote:
| I always wonder why rockets are millions of dollars each,
| that seems insane to me.
| lukan wrote:
| Fireworks rocket do not cost as much. But if you want high
| precision and high speed, that simply is expensive. Also
| the area is of course restricted making it more expensive
| as most states do not want DIY rockets everywhere.
| mikkupikku wrote:
| Check out Joe Barnard's youtube channel BPS.Space where
| he's documenting his development of "high power" (hobby)
| rockets. Those are relatively small rockets still but
| nonetheless he's getting into performance regimes where the
| engineering starts to be tricky and the details really
| matter. The more extreme your rocket gets, the difficulty
| really ramps up quick.
| dcrazy wrote:
| It's not a complete explanation, but I was awed by the
| precision of the shower screens used in modern rocket
| engines. In the 60s it might have sufficed to just spray
| fuel into the combustion chamber using some nozzles, but
| now we have highly precise matrices of micro-perforations
| that maximize combustion.
|
| Also if you want to harden the rocket against EMP attacks
| you need an inertial guidance system, and those things also
| demand extreme precision.
| runako wrote:
| Part of it is the sophistication. Take the Tomahawk:
| assumed range of ~1000 miles , estimated accuracy of 30
| feet. Can launch from above or below water. Etc.
|
| The other part is the limited production runs. Until last
| month, the DoD was generally purchasing ~100 of these
| annually. There's no scale economy in making these, so
| those 100 missiles need to support the entire production &
| R&D of the product.
| whamlastxmas wrote:
| I imagine part of it is also zero acceptance for failed
| launches. It needs to always work
| hermitcrab wrote:
| Missiles definitely do not always work. I have seen film
| of a Sea Slug missile (with war head) falling over the
| side of a Royal Navy ship, without the motor firing
| properly. Apparently there was a void in the solid
| propellant.
| regularfry wrote:
| It's worth reading up on the history of the Sidewinder
| development for the other side of this coin. _Radically_
| cheaper than the conventionally-developed alternatives at
| the time. It 's grown legs in more recent marks but the
| first few variants were really not sophisticated at all.
| throwup238 wrote:
| It really depends on what kind of rocket you're talking
| about. An unguided rocket propelled grenade mass produced
| with 1960s technology is a few hundred bucks. Stepping up
| to a simple TOW guided missile using 1970s technology
| quickly ramps that price up to $5-10k per round with a max
| range of 3-5km.
|
| Once you add in modern electronics and guidance and
| reliability that cost quickly skyrockets, going up an order
| of magnitude at each step of complexity (advanced guided
| like the Javelin, cruise, ballistic, etc).
| sandworm101 wrote:
| They arent. Missiles cost millions. Rockets are cheap.
| Rockets are unguided. Missiles are guided. From a military
| perspective, spacelaunch rockets are techically "unguided"
| as they are not tracking a target but trying to stick to a
| fixed/programed trajectory. It is the seeker head that
| costs the millions, all the jamming/counter-jamming tech
| that drives up development costs.
|
| This is a rather basic (passive) seeker head by modern
| standards.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:R-27_missile_homing_head
| ,...
| rancar2 wrote:
| Taking a quick look at the BOM, it lacks the correct sensor
| selection.
| firesteelrain wrote:
| Even if the correct sensor could be chosen (whatever it is),
| unlikely is attainable by consumers and the technology would
| definitely be export controlled in the US.
| torginus wrote:
| I think MEMS gyroscopes and accelerometers used in consumer
| drones should be just about good enough to measure
| orientation and acceleration, and those are cheap and easy
| to get.
|
| You could integrate acceleration to get speed - the flight
| is short enough to make compounding errors easy to ignore.
|
| I think thanks to drones and RC hobbyists, there's a
| generally nice body of knowledge on how to get good enough
| data from consumer hardware to keep things flying.
| obidee2 wrote:
| > You could integrate acceleration to get speed - the
| flight is short enough to make compounding errors easy to
| ignore.
|
| 'Easy to ignore' is not a term I would use here,
| especially given the motion environment of a rocket. It
| seems like it might be beginning to be borderline
| possible.
| the__alchemist wrote:
| > You could integrate acceleration to get speed - the
| flight is short enough to make compounding errors easy to
| ignore.
|
| False, given how noisy MEMS IMUs are, and the accuracy
| required. Even Ring Laser Gyros drift quickly.
| kotaKat wrote:
| You'd be AMAZED what you can find on eBay.
|
| I saw this pop up alongside its video thumbnail and nearly
| shit myself watching it and going "damn, that looks exactly
| like what's on those RU/UA drones going at each other"...
| https://www.ebay.com/itm/197224214645
|
| "HS AI Vision Cube For Ultra-long-range Target Recognition
| tracking & Thermal" for as low as $175. I am feeling the
| potential ITAR violations straight through my screen.
| rdtsc wrote:
| > I am feeling the potential ITAR violations straight
| through my screen
|
| And possibly landing on all kinds of watch lists.
|
| I wouldn't be surprised if some of the sellers there are
| just honeypots.
|
| A name like "Ultra-long-range Target Recognition
| tracking" just screams "Hey, FBI, please come visit me
| and ask what I am building in the basement"
| waffleiron wrote:
| Are items made, located in, and sold from China covered
| by ITAR?
| bruckie wrote:
| The funny thing is, at least as I understand it, ITAR
| only applies to things produced in the United States. As
| example, you can't buy very good FLIR IR cameras in the
| United States without a lot of paperwork, but you can
| trivially buy much better (higher resolution, faster
| frame rate) and cheaper IR cameras that are produced in
| China.
| daymanstep wrote:
| I'm surprised nobody else has pointed this out. The entire
| YouTube video has only two short clips of the actual rocket
| being fired, and in both cases the clips are very short and
| only show the rocket being fired and then following an erratic
| flight path, and then get cut before showing the rocket hitting
| anything.
|
| For all the technical info given in the video, there is a
| curious lack of any data regarding the actual accuracy of the
| system. What percentage of rockets tested managed to hit
| anything and at what range?
| __MatrixMan__ wrote:
| The video references "future tracking systems," so I don't
| think it aims at all yet.
| walterbell wrote:
| _> curious lack of any data regarding the actual accuracy of
| the system_
|
| No lack of entrackment data generated by [edit] digital twin
| github repo of "the system".
| ImPostingOnHN wrote:
| "digital twin"?
|
| Is there a simulation that has been documented to have the
| identical behavior and flight characteristics as the real
| thing? Does not seem like it.
|
| If there is a difference, it is not a twin.
| walterbell wrote:
| Thanks for the correction.
| simonh wrote:
| I suspect a major problem is the quality and consistency of
| the propellant and getting a symmetric burn.
| DivingForGold wrote:
| Get connected with DARPA ASAP, just to let the overlords know
| you are on "the right side of the fence" - - before Homeland
| pays you a "very uncomfortable" visit
| vidarh wrote:
| You don't need to win any wars with it if you can use them to
| sow confusion, obscure the firing of more serious rockets,
| and/or trigger a sufficiently more expensive response.
|
| It clearly needs more work, but if an amateur can get this far
| at this low cost, odds are you'll see attempts at overwhelming
| attackers or defense systems by sheer volume with cheap decoys
| like this long before they become an actual threat in and of
| themselves.
|
| Get the rocket a bit more stable, and force an attack to try to
| take out dozens of these because one of them might be a real
| threat, and you'll have created a problem.
| jacquesm wrote:
| With a 3D printer and some 'ordinary household chemicals' to
| quote a certain movie you can do pretty scary stuff.
| ge96 wrote:
| McGuyver pouring sap on a pinecone
|
| Hiya! (Grenade)
| bluescrn wrote:
| People can do very scary things with a knife, a car, or
| petrol+matches.
|
| We don't try to regulate those things out of existence like
| we do with new technology (drones and now 3D printers)
|
| Kind of ridiculous that a country with more guns than
| people and 45k firearms deaths per year wants to regulate
| 3D printed plastic. Yet collecting and shooting actual guns
| is still an acceptable hobby in many states.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Oh, I totally agree. I always see this as evidence that
| the terrorism threat is overblown, if it were really as
| large as we are led to believe the number of successful
| attacks would be far higher than it is.
| tpmoney wrote:
| The same states that want to regulate 3d printers and
| force you to register them and install only software that
| will prevent you from printing anything that even looks
| like a gun part are also the same states that have been
| trying (or succeeding) in enforcing those same sorts of
| broad and dubious regulations on firearms too. When you
| think of states whose legislatures think collecting and
| shooting guns is an acceptable hobby, California and New
| York don't exactly top the list.
| ricardobeat wrote:
| Can a rocket be used to cut your food, take you to the
| supermarket or power your car?
|
| I'm completely against regulation of any sorts on 3D
| printing, but you have to admit there is a huge
| difference in purpose there.
| oofbey wrote:
| Exactly. Consider the current conflict in Iran. They have
| thousands of drones that cost $50k each. The US's only real
| defense against one of these drones is to fire a million
| dollar missile at it. That assymmetry can win or lose a war.
| sarchertech wrote:
| It's not the only real defense. This works pretty well too
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centurion_C-RAM
|
| There's clearly a need for more cheap interceptor drones as
| well, but it's not like the US military won't start
| deploying those soon enough.
| slicktux wrote:
| Regardless, he made a prototype rocket enclosure and he seems
| to have the software down... I think the propulsion system will
| be the easy part. Hardest part will be tuning the PID so that
| the rocket goes where he wants it to. Then incorporating his
| tracking system will be another challenge of itself but that's
| because of the form factor. As long as his calculus and linear
| algebra is good I see than being successful. Either way I'd
| hire simply to be a prototype engineer. Either Anduril or CIA
| would hire him in a heartbeat for prototyping.
| FrojoS wrote:
| > I think the propulsion system will be the easy part.
|
| Really? I think rocket science is still not easy. Just look
| at how much nation states are spending on maintaining their
| liquid and/or solid fuel rocket programs. If they even have
| one, let alone both.
|
| This book might give some insights into the why https://libra
| ry.sciencemadness.org/library/books/ignition.pd...
|
| Quote: "All this sounds fairly academic and innocuous, but
| when it is translated into the problem of handling the stuff,
| the results are horrendous. It is, of course, extremely
| toxic, but that's the least of the problem. It is hypergolic
| with every known fuel, and so rapidly hypergolic that no
| ignition delay has ever been measured. It is also hypergolic
| with such things as cloth, wood, and test engineers, not to
| mention asbestos, sand, and water --with which it reacts
| explosively. It can be It has recently been shown that an
| argon fluoride, probably ArF2, does exist, but it is unstable
| except at cryogenic temperatures.
|
| [...] kept in some of the ordinary structural metals --
| steel, copper, aluminum, etc. --because of the formation of a
| thin film of insoluble metal fluoride which protects the bulk
| of the metal, just as the invisible coat of oxide on aluminum
| keeps it from burning up in the atmosphere. If, however, this
| coat is melted or scrubbed off, and has no chance to reform,
| the operator is confronted with the problem of coping with a
| metal-fluorine fire. For dealing with this situation, I have
| always recommended a good pair of running shoes."
|
| Granted this is about a fuel that is AFAIK not used for
| MANPADs, but the joke about the running shoes could be made
| about most aspects of rocket propulsion.
| slicktux wrote:
| With all do respect I think your over complicating the
| problem. It's not rocket science (no pun intended). It's
| essentially a hobby rocket that can be weaponized and it's
| all DIY. That's the point simple and off the shelf. Not
| meant to travel towards the stratosphere or even long
| range. Quick and dirty way to cause havoc in a localized
| area.
| FrojoS wrote:
| Ok. Maybe you are right. I don't know.
| giantg2 wrote:
| "and you are not going to win any war with this toy, even if
| all your enemy has are rocks thrown at you"
|
| I don't want to use it for war. I think it would be a pretty
| cool technical project (if it works).
| oofbey wrote:
| This design is pretty clearly optimized for weaponry. Eg the
| foldable fins - necessary if you want to keep a magazine of
| these things stored compactly before firing. Totally
| unnecessary for funsies.
|
| What nonviolent application are you imagining for a gps-
| guided rocket that is launched by pulling a gun trigger on a
| hand held mount?
| atemerev wrote:
| Ukraine needs more cheap weapons.
| blincoln wrote:
| > What nonviolent application are you imagining for a gps-
| guided rocket that is launched by pulling a gun trigger on
| a hand held mount?
|
| A launcher for a climbing rope or grappling hook. Have you
| ever tried getting a rope up over a branch on a very tall
| tree?
|
| Not joking - I considered it as a hobby project years ago
| until I discovered how hard it would be to do legally.
| srean wrote:
| Hatari
|
| https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5LqMAygTHEQ&t=120s
| giantg2 wrote:
| Launching model rockets with a controlled landing (less
| likelihood of property damage or fires). Learning about the
| components. Folding fins make it easier to transport
| without snapping one (hopefully). Trigger vs button launch
| isn't that big of deal, although might have better safety
| options compared to standard model rocket launch buttons.
| f1shy wrote:
| Something far more interesting, you can find in this channel:
| https://m.youtube.com/@LafayetteSystems
| avidiax wrote:
| I've been subscribed to this guy for some time. His work is
| much more impressive, and IIRC, he either works for a defense
| contractor or is studying for that.
|
| I think there's lots of people talking past each other on
| this post. These kinds of designs won't be as reliable as the
| existing designs, and they may have a systemic flaw, for
| example, susceptibility to disabling with microwaves. And
| they aren't going to work after sitting in an ammo depot for
| 15 years in the desert or after being dropped from a plane.
|
| But these designs will cost just a few dollars more than the
| equivalent dumb munition (and can possibly be retrofitted),
| and can be two orders of magnitude more effective in the
| short term. The threat here isn't "guy in garage makes
| MANPADS", it's "IRGC converts 100's of thousands of existing
| unguided cold-war rockets into guided S2A and S2S missiles
| for $20 each". Even if it doesn't hit any target, each
| aircraft has a limited number of countermeasures and has to
| return to base if they run out or risk being hit.
|
| Guided munition at a dumb munition price is enough to
| invalidate many strategies.
| kikkia wrote:
| Really cool work on making your own rocket motors.
|
| I wonder why he calls it a MANPADS (Man portable Air Defense
| System) It does slightly resemble a Manpads, but with a GPS based
| guidance system it would not able to be used for air defense,
| even conceptually. Typically manpads would use something like an
| infrared/optical or radar guidance system which would run way
| more than $5. This does seem like a cool home made AGM-176 or
| similar. There's always been a side project idea in the back of
| my head about what the cheapest IR or laser guided RC Plane
| launched rocket would look like. A cheap rocket design powered by
| some model rocket engines that could be used for a drone -> drone
| intercept cheaply.
|
| Awesome job taking a fun idea into reality. It's really
| impressive to see the design work
| MarkusWandel wrote:
| It still doesn't cease to amaze me what can be done with modern
| ultra-cheap electronics. $1 for the accelerometer. $17 for _four_
| servos. But as DIY cheap weapon development? Only if the ultra-
| cheap electronics pipeline will keep flowing.
| nekusar wrote:
| And what this misses is with his other repo
| https://github.com/novatic14/Distributed-Camera-Node-Trackin...
|
| This provides a distributed camera network to provide realtime
| updatable telemetry for target acquisition.
|
| Only thing missing is he should have used LoRa as the backend
| comms. Meshtastic devices provide encryption and full comms with
| mesh for cheap.
|
| Thankfully ive already downloaded everything. I suggest you all
| do the same, cause this repo is getting purged and the student
| Alisher Khojayev at Los Angeles Valley College is likely going to
| get black bagged.
| nine-one-two wrote:
| Check out his code. It's a joke. His control loop is a naive
| proportional response that doesnt even account for error let
| alone interpolate trajectory. Look at rocket.txt and launcher.tx.
| Especially the "fusion" function. lol. Stay in school kid.
| zoklet-enjoyer wrote:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47370362
| lightedman wrote:
| Uhhh, as someone who is very much under the thumb of ITAR and EAR
| as an aerospace employee, this is absolutely asking for prison
| time, and a LOT of it.
| stuckkeys wrote:
| Are you afraid this person might be coming for your cake?
| clbrmbr wrote:
| I strongly object to building weapons. It is not right. Raise
| your consciousness, young hacker.
|
| I grew up building homemade rocket engines to power model
| rockets. I even programmed a flight computer in ASM.
|
| I was always quite risk averse and, then being only shortly after
| 9/11, I told my friend I worried what we were doing may be
| illegal or otherwise get us in trouble. So he picked up the phone
| and called the county fire marshal. My friend explained EXACTLY
| what we were doing, down to the potassium nitrate and the
| homemade black powder and nitrocellulose igniters. The fire
| marshal paused for a long moment and said "it's not against any
| law I'm aware of. Just don't start any fires." We proceeded to
| have many successful flights and participated in NERF (a rocketry
| club that used to get 12kft clearance from FAA before the govt
| started stonewalling us).
|
| I feel very fortunate to have grown up in an environment where
| that was permitted. I fear that my children will not have the
| same privilege--for many reasons, but one factor is people
| putting violent things like this on GitHub. Please take it down.
| ivanjermakov wrote:
| I was suprised seeing american youtube folks building rockets
| (including orientation and guidance systems) in their free
| time. In many countries doing this is borderline jail time.
| atemerev wrote:
| Unbombed people are cute.
| infinitewars wrote:
| That's why it's so important for people who can hold a moral
| line, to do so. Violence breeds violence.
|
| A good engineer in America can afford avoiding weapons work.
| muyuu wrote:
| it's good work if it helps the right people
| infinitewars wrote:
| Who are the "right" people to kill? What happens when
| govt decides to aim your weapons at the "wrong" people?
| muyuu wrote:
| the people who are invading another country in a war of
| conquest, for instance
|
| you seem to believe we live in a world where there no
| longer are such wars of single-handed aggression
|
| we don't live in that world
| steve-atx-7600 wrote:
| Right. Not knowing human nature doesn't mean you won't be
| affected by it in ways that you just haven't thought of
| or don't believe could happen to you.
| infinitewars wrote:
| > a war of conquest
|
| Israel invading Gaza is kind of proving the point? Those
| are American weapons bombing civilians.
| atemerev wrote:
| A moral line is to help the right side with all heart, all
| mind and all might. If you know any other way to make
| Russia get off from Ukraine besides tons of cheap weapons -
| I'm listening. Otherwise, weapons are a necessity.
| jjmarr wrote:
| It's impossible to get a job nowadays so new grads will do
| anything to stick out.
|
| You don't really understand the desperation we're going through
| right now. OP _wants_ to be visited by the feds.
| ryandrake wrote:
| Seems like a one way road--the way things are getting stricter
| and stricter. My parents did shit when they were growing up
| that would have landed me in prison, and I did _plenty_ of
| things growing up that would have landed my kid in prison.
|
| I fear the next generation is going to grow up confined to a
| bubble where they're only allowed to stay home and mindlessly
| consume corporate approved product, never make things, never
| build things, never destroy things, never hack a computer game,
| never reverse engineer a wire protocol, never go out and walk
| around and explore, never race things, never jump off things,
| never blow things up or burn them down, never protest things or
| yell at someone, never get into a fistfight, never take
| physical risks and learn what hurts and what doesn't. In 2050,
| growing up means just 1. go to church, or 2. watch streaming.
| swiftcoder wrote:
| > I strongly object to building weapons. It is not right.
|
| I used to object to building weapons. Now the EU is engaged in
| a proxy war with Russia, and the US has repeatedly threatening
| to annex Greenland. Suddenly the need for a domestic weapons
| supply chain does not seem so farfetched
| Mars008 wrote:
| That's what US constitution is all about. The people should
| have power more than just voting. When they don't have it
| it's like EU. Even legitimate candidate can be easily taken
| out like in Romania. EU leaders prized it. None even said
| sorry when accusations appeared to be fake and intentionally
| fabricated. In this case even voting power has been taken
| from citizens. Nobody can do anything about it. Multi-step
| voting systems is another example of minimizing citizens'
| voting powers. And no legal (and illegal) way for armed
| protests. Very safe total control. In EU it's called
| 'democracy'. For comparison Putin is also democratically
| rules for 26 years now. At least that's what their media
| tells.
| K0balt wrote:
| This isn't a serious project, in the terms of something that will
| disrupt warfighting. It's basically a resume to work as a junior
| engineer at Anduril.
|
| Interesting stuff, neat project, nothing new at all here except
| his multi camera sensing, which isn't new but his implementation
| is interesting.
|
| IDK if maybe it's a political statement or some kind of obtuse
| sarcasm, but it seems like he drank way too much of his buzzword
| cool-aid lol. It's probably just a job application though.
| quickrefio wrote:
| Very cool project. The combination of 3D printing and low-cost
| sensors has really changed what's possible for experimental
| rocketry.
| colechristensen wrote:
| A word to the wise: don't design weapons and share them publicly
| on the Internet.
| peterus wrote:
| I would suggest using a more modern IMU, the MPU6050 has been
| long obsoleted both in cost and capability by newer IMUs. I used
| the ST LSM6DSOX in my rocket flight computers, for example it has
| a way better rate noise density of 110ug/Sqrt[Hz] at 16g fs
| compared to the awful 400 ug/Sqrt[Hz] of the MPU6050 and is
| cheaper than the MPU6050 on LCSC last time I bought some. If you
| go newer to the LSM6DSV you can get 60ug/Sqrt[Hz] but these
| aren't as cheap. There was an interesting Sony project which used
| a synchronized array of these consumer IMUs to achieve lower
| noise (apparently they became export controlled despite just
| fusing a bunch of consumer IMUs on one PCB!)
|
| Nowadays you can even use the LSM6DSV320X which has both a low-g
| and high-g integrated which basically obsoletes the high-g
| ADXL375 and saves some space, but it's not quite at the price and
| supply reliability of the LSM6DSOX since it is less than a year
| old.
| jokoon wrote:
| the obvious goal of that is to help kill those iranian drones
| hermitcrab wrote:
| Impressive. But:
|
| -Is a 3D printed assembly really going to withstand the heat of
| the rocket motor? Or is that going to be replaced with metal?
|
| -The solid motor grain shown looks pretty janky. I definitely
| wouldn't want that any near me when it fired, let alone on my
| shoulder.
| ralferoo wrote:
| I remember an anecdote our robotics lecturer told our university
| class in 1995, which was about how in the west we try to make
| expensive things that are the absolute best of technology and how
| the other side didn't have that luxury and relied on ingenuity.
|
| He described a cold war Russian missile they had somehow obtained
| and were tasked with trying to reverse engineer. Ostensibly, it
| was thought to be a heat seeking missile, but there seemed to be
| no control or guidance circuitry at all. There was a single LDR
| (light dependent resistor) attached to a coil which moved a fin.
| That was it. Total cost for the guidance system maybe a couple of
| dollars, compared to hundreds of thousands for the cheapest
| guidance systems we had at the time.
|
| The key insight was that if you shined a light at it, the fin
| moved one way and if there was no light the fin moved the
| opposite way. That still didn't explain how this was able to
| guide a missile, but the next realisation was that the other fins
| were angled so when this was flying (propelled by burning rocket
| fuel), the missile was inherently unstable - rotating around the
| axis of thrust and wobbling slightly. With the moveable fin in
| place, it was enough to straighten it up when it was facing a
| bright light, and wobble more when there was no bright light.
| Because it was constantly rotating, you could think of it as
| defaulting to exploring a cone around its current direction, and
| when it could see a light it aimed towards the centre of that
| cone. It was then able to "explore the sky" and latch on to the
| brightest thing it could see, which would hopefully be the
| exhaust from a plane, and so it would be able to lock on, and
| adjust course on a moving target with no "brain" at all.
| Gud wrote:
| Incredible
| dosssman wrote:
| Similar to how moths guide themselves toward light
| chroma wrote:
| Unless it was nighttime or the engagement happened at low
| altitude on a cloudy day, wouldn't that usually lock onto the
| sun?
| bluescrn wrote:
| The wobble would only 'scan' a limited field of view, so only
| if the sun was in that view
| chroma wrote:
| Also wouldn't it only work for aircraft that are flying
| away from the launcher? IR & light signatures are much
| weaker from the front. At best I think this guidance system
| would only be economical for ground-based launchers, as the
| cost of aircraft and their limited payloads mean you want
| the most effective weapons onboard, not the cheapest.
|
| Annoyingly, I can't find any information online about such
| a simple guidance system. The earliest homing missile
| fielded by the Soviets was the K-13[1], which used
| technology reversed-engineered from the AIM-9
| Sidewinder[2]. Later systems seem to be improvements upon
| that technology, not simplifications.
|
| 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K-13_(missile)
|
| 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIM-9_Sidewinder
| Tadpole9181 wrote:
| > Also wouldn't it only work for aircraft that are flying
| away from the launcher?
|
| Yes, pretty much all early guided missiles of the sort
| were what's called "rear-aspect".
|
| Can't see the plume - can't make a boom.
| gorgoiler wrote:
| I believe there was a similar weapon being developed in the
| west, only recently, which involved a missile with contra
| rotating halves joined by a clutch. The fixed fins caused it to
| always steer one way. It flew straight by releasing the clutch
| to spin up the front half, negating the steering effect.
| Grabbing the clutch caused it to stop spinning and veer off in
| one direction.
|
| Presto! Two axis continuous flight control with a 1-bit input.
|
| Edit: my memory wasn't far off. It's Starstreak:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starstreak
| coredog64 wrote:
| 35-ish years ago there was a pitch for cheap, high velocity,
| spin-stabilized rockets that were deployed in dense pods on
| the A-10. The rocket's seeker could divert some small amount
| of thrust at an angle for guidance, but otherwise that was
| it. I can't recall if it ever made it out of the pilot phase,
| but obviously nothing new under the sun.
| srean wrote:
| Strike a light in front of a parked but otherwise active fin
| guided heat-seeker and its freaky to watch it come alive like a
| lazy beagle eyeing a treat.
| inglor_cz wrote:
| Is there a video of that on YT?
| snitty wrote:
| This is shockingly similar to microbial motility mechanisms.
| Like random walk plus chemotaxis.
| trhway wrote:
| that sounds like crude-fied version of first Sidewinders.
| dandanua wrote:
| > with no "brain" at all
|
| It seems this is how Russia moves in general. Hopefully, this
| will end at some point.
| mapt wrote:
| This sounds like the early Sidewinder or other 1940's/1950's
| attempts at infrared homing missiles.
| crtified wrote:
| That frugal, creative mindset is also the default for people of
| modest income everywhere in the world - borne of necessity.
| dzhiurgis wrote:
| > That still didn't explain how this was able to guide a
| missile
|
| That does explain why it lands on civilian areas tho
| Animats wrote:
| That's roughly how the original Sidewinder worked. The original
| concept was to reduce near-misses. If the pilot could get on
| the target's tail and aim at the engines, it usually got a hit.
| That was the same task as getting into firing position for
| guns. Hit rate about 8% in combat.
|
| Later versions allowed launches from longer ranges and from
| off-angles.
| 3abiton wrote:
| This is an interesting thought, as if I remember correctly,
| there was this theory that once something is known to be
| possible to discover, it only takes dedication to achieve it
| (George Dantzig as an example)
| ramijames wrote:
| Well that doesn't bode well for the coming world war :(
| stuckkeys wrote:
| That is wild. Entertaining to watch.
| sy26 wrote:
| > Contributors > novatic14 Alisher Khojayev > claude Claude >
| hobostay Qiaochu Hu
|
| I wonder how much role Claude plays in enabling the
| designing/building of it
| moxie1337 wrote:
| Can it destroy cruise missiles?
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