alt Hacker News$96 3D-printed rocket that recalculates its mid-air trajectory using a $5 sensor
Comments
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.
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.
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/
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.
> 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
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.
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.
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!)
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.
> Contributors > novatic14 Alisher Khojayev > claude Claude > hobostay Qiaochu Hu
I wonder how much role Claude plays in enabling the designing/building of it
As the YouTube comments say:
> This guy really wants that defense contract.
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
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...
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...
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?
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.
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.
God, I feel like I am going to be on a list after clicking that link.
The future is scary
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.
Well that doesn't bode well for the coming world war :(
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.
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.
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.
This is the coolest thing I've seen all week, possibly this month
A word to the wise: don't design weapons and share them publicly on the Internet.
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.
That is wild. Entertaining to watch.
Very cool project. The combination of 3D printing and low-cost sensors has really changed what's possible for experimental rocketry.
Impressive! Well done
the obvious goal of that is to help kill those iranian drones
So basically a homing missile?
John Connor.
This is insanely clever—especially using a $5 sensor to adjust the rocket mid-flight. Shows how much you can do now with cheap electronics and open-source software. Curious how reliable the recalculations are under real-world conditions.
Insanity. Airbus fighter jets, open-source rockets on github...
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
[dead]
[dead]
[dead]
[dead]
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.