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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
> 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.
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.
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
Cheap sensors look impressive in demos but drift and calibration wreck repeatability unless you babysit launches so nobody in defense is sweating this yet.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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).
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.
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.
> 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.
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.
> 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.
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
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.
"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.
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".
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.
It is exciting to know a secret no one else does. David vs Goliath stories have always been powerful. It is seductive to think you have outsmarted the rest of society.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
> 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.
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.
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.
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
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.
> 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]
"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.
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.
"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).
> 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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..
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...
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).
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?
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.
> 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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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
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.
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.
This is shockingly similar to microbial motility mechanisms. Like random walk plus chemotaxis.
Unless it was nighttime or the engagement happened at low altitude on a cloudy day, wouldn’t that usually lock onto the sun?
The wobble would only 'scan' a limited field of view, so only if the sun was in that view
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> with no "brain" at all
It seems this is how Russia moves in general. Hopefully, this will end at some point.
Similar to how moths guide themselves toward light
that sounds like crude-fied version of first Sidewinders.
Incredible
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.
> 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.
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.
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If you build a tool optimized for human destruction, you are feeding a system where violence is the default currency
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
I wonder what could have possibly sparked that... lol
Cheap sensors look impressive in demos but drift and calibration wreck repeatability unless you babysit launches so nobody in defense is sweating this yet.
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.
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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.
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Cheap sensors are the future ;) onboard ML can help with signals interpretation.
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.
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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.
But do they drift enough to hit girls schools?
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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.
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.
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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.
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.
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).
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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
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> 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.
More than the electronics, I would be curious about the performance of 3d-printed plastic parts on a rocket. Are they strong enough?
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.
People have been doing 3d printed model rockets for a while now. With no payload they experience higher acceleration than this will.
AI slop comment
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
Seems like the quick fix is to rebrand this from "MANPADS" to "anti-tank", right? Then it would just be a standard destructive device?
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.
> 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.
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.
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> 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.
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.
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.
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
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.
> 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.
Yes. Both sides are using explosive FPV drones, flown directly into soldiers (as well as other forms of drone warfare.)
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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".
Who knew there were war bros.
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.
[flagged]
It is exciting to know a secret no one else does. David vs Goliath stories have always been powerful. It is seductive to think you have outsmarted the rest of society.
Be careful who you let manipulate those emotions.
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The white washing of Koresh is sickening to see. Similar to how some in the US idolize the traitor Colonel Robert E Lee.
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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/
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?
I suspect a major problem is the quality and consistency of the propellant and getting a symmetric burn.
The video references "future tracking systems," so I don't think it aims at all yet.
> curious lack of any data regarding the actual accuracy of the system
No lack of entrackment data generated by [edit] d̶i̶g̶i̶t̶a̶l̶ ̶t̶w̶i̶n̶ github repo of "the system".
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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.
I always wonder why rockets are millions of dollars each, that seems insane to me.
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Something far more interesting, you can find in this channel: https://m.youtube.com/@LafayetteSystems
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.
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.
With a 3D printer and some 'ordinary household chemicals' to quote a certain movie you can do pretty scary stuff.
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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.
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"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).
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?
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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.
> 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://library.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.
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Taking a quick look at the BOM, it lacks the correct sensor selection.
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.
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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
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.
> 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
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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.
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"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.
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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.
"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
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> 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.
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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
> Description: Space echoes like an immense tomb, yet the stars still burn. Why does the sun take so long to die?
Translation: everyone should be able to shoot down an airliner, not just nations.
I mean, if we already "trust" nations with that power...
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.
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.
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.
My understanding is that for the civilians in Ukraine Shaheed style drones are the danger.
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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.
>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.
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> Contributors > novatic14 Alisher Khojayev > claude Claude > hobostay Qiaochu Hu
I wonder how much role Claude plays in enabling the designing/building of it
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.
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.
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.
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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.
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!)
As the YouTube comments say:
> This guy really wants that defense contract.
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.
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...
Yeah, this current project uses external sensors (a camera array/grid) for guidance.
He's using potassium nitrate/sugar as his rocket fuel.
Watch the video. He makes his own propellant.
> rocket propellant
You can homemade it, kno3+sugar
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).
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.
> 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
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.
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.
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.
Unbombed people are cute.
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.
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God, I feel like I am going to be on a list after clicking that link.
The future is scary
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.
> 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!
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.
But in Canada we ...
Oh shit. You're right.
Well that doesn't bode well for the coming world war :(
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
Kid knows how to advertise
Yes to three-letter agencies.
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
That is wild. Entertaining to watch.
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.
Sounds a lot more like a missile than a rocket.
The HN headline is very euphemistic, but his own published materials aren't. He's openly saying it's a missile.
Very cool project. The combination of 3D printing and low-cost sensors has really changed what's possible for experimental rocketry.
the obvious goal of that is to help kill those iranian drones
Impressive! Well done
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...
Can't wait for the open source fighter jet.
Clawjet, secured with sandboxing, bring your own SKILLs.
this is not funny yall!
Airbus has been in the defense industry for a long time.
And the deadliest weapons in war today are repurposed toys.
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-...
that's lit
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47370362
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.
Are you afraid this person might be coming for your cake?
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.
The budget is not the issue...the idiots running things behind that budget are the problem.
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
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