Build Your Own Thrust Vectored Rockets for Vertical Landings Like SpaceX

Re:Build Your Own Thrust Vectored Rockets for Vertical Landi... by choeger on Thursday October 31, 2019 @06:51AM (#21407397)

That is innovation right there in our faces. All that stuff was theoretically possible ten or twenty years ago. But completely impractical for a single hobbyist.

Not to mention that propulsive rocket landing is a thing for -what? Six years?- in the real world now.

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Re:Build Your Own Thrust Vectored Rockets for Vertical Landi... by ballooney on Thursday October 31, 2019 @07:23AM (#21407545)

There were hobbyists making thrust-vectored rockets at this scale twenty-ish years ago.

e.g. http://michael.sdf-eu.org/Gyroc/

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Re:Build Your Own Thrust Vectored Rockets for Vertical Landi... by perfectphase on Thursday October 31, 2019 @09:04AM (#21408241)

Gyroc was amazing at the time and is still spoken about in hushed tones in the UK HPR community. While it was using ADXL50 devices for acceleration, the main gyro was an entirely custom built mechanical rotating gyro, wish I still had some pictures of it. Now that's all on a single chip you hardly even notice on the board :) Some pictures of it are here http://ukrocketman.com/rocketry/gimbal.shtml

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Re:Build Your Own Thrust Vectored Rockets for Vertical Landi... by steeve on Thursday October 31, 2019 @07:19AM (#21407532)

It's crazy how some things can rapidly go from breakthrough to commodity nowadays. It reminds me of early drones vs ArduPilot in a way.

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Re:Build Your Own Thrust Vectored Rockets for Vertical Landi... by madengr on Thursday October 31, 2019 @07:20AM (#21407535)

More like 50+ years, if you count the LIM, and all other retro-rocket use.

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Re:Build Your Own Thrust Vectored Rockets for Vertical Landi... by tigershark on Thursday October 31, 2019 @09:18AM (#21408357)

The first falcon 9 landing was about 4 years ago if I remember correctly

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