Launching rockets into the sky can be a thrill, but why not make the fall just as interesting? That is exactly what [I Build Stuff] thought when attempting to build a self-landing payload. The idea is to release a can sized “satellite” from a rocket at an altitude upwards of 1 km, which will then fly back down to the launch point.
The device itself is a first-person view (FPV) drone running the popular Betaflight firmware. With arms that swing out with some of the smallest brushless motors you’ve ever seen (albeit not the smallest motor), the satellite is surprisingly capable. Unfortunately due to concerns over the legality of an autonomous payload, the drone is human controlled on the descent.
Using collaborated efforts, a successful launch was flown with the satellite making it to the ground unharmed, at least for the most part. While the device did show capabilities of being able to fly back, human error led to a manual recovery. Of course, this is far from the only rocketry hack we have seen here at Hackaday. If you are more into making the flight itself interesting, here is a record breaking one from USC students.
Thank you [Hari Wiguna] for the great tip!
Awesome, MIRV FPVs, if the war keeps up it will be 20% more horrific in a few months
I think the uplink is the limiting factor right now. Hence the new fiberoptic drones.
The ultimate challenge is send a payload up to 100,000 feet via balloon and having it fly back to launch point. Very tough, probably not doable at the hobbyist level .
depends on whether you’ll end up needing a 10:1 or 50:1 glide ratio
I suspect at that point you would want a more airfoil-style drone and not a quadcopter. Maybe it lands with a simple parachute once it has traversed the horizontal distance
…And of course civilian GPS will be an issue at that altitude, won’t it? Is it permissible to have a radio beacon at the launch site it can simply home in on
The Ublox M10 GPS modules that are commonly used on drones have an altitude limit of 80km, so they will work fine for a balloon. They do have speed and acceleration limits that will probably be an issue for a rocket though.
That has been done many times before by hobbyists. It is probably much easier to do now since you don’t need to DIY the entire flight control system.
https://hackaday.com/2005/01/12/homebrew-autonomous-high-altitude-glider/
https://hackaday.com/2013/03/10/launching-a-glider-from-space/
Watching the G data the drone seemed to be at approximately freefall the entire time? Disingenuous, at best, if so.
the video noted mentioned that he didn’t notice how close it was to the ground and didn’t turn on the motors on time (the mechanism did deploy the motors) and they demonstrated the drone flying separately
Yes I saw. It still didn’t change the measured G until it hit the ground.
the drone was able to right itself and descend upright. I’ll give him points for that.
dude has a punchable voice
i don’t know about punchable, but the combination of a deadpan delivery and expressive language grinds my ears
I’ve long thought that hybrid rocket/quadcopters will be a popular concept in warfare twenty minutes into the future… Not only rockets which deploy drones, but certainly drones which can quickly jettison their wings and propellers and transition into a rocket once it is in position and aimed.
Drone defense will become a lot more difficult once they are capable of going supersonic the instant they enter line-of-sight. Those ECM jammers and net guns will not be enough if they are already moving ballistically.
…Somebody will eventually make a cluster munition which scatters dozens of these little guys, and they actively seek things out on the ground instead of just falling randomly. At least that means less stuff will be left over in the ground to blow off some kid’s leg three decades after the war has ended.
And it might allow it to get around the disarmament conventions with some creative lawyering.
That is old tech. Loitering munition had been a thing even before Orcs invasion. And no need to drop anything if you are a halfbreed between fixed wing plane and rocket already.
Also optic fibers sometimes measuring dozens of km are extremely widely being used in the war. Jammers already can’t do a thing about them.
Maybe … but did you as a hobbiest try it :) ? Always ‘new’ when it is the first time ‘you’ design it, try it within the guidelines of model rocketry of course. The wheel of time keeps spinning and new people try ‘new’ (old) things again.
Neat project!
Indeed the interesting moment will be when a hobbyist tries it and gets past the security detail of a major figure
There is a cost to the fiber optic versions though, in form of much smaller warheads.
Fly by fiber drones are already pretty immune to ECM jammers etc.
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=fly+by+fiber+drones+ukraine
Check out “SWOSU Argonia Cup” on YouTube. The Argonia Cup Challenge is a competition for college teams. It started off as a challenge to launch a high power rocket containing a golf ball and return the golf ball to a pre-determined location on the range. Southwest Oklahoma State Univ. nailed it directly on the “X” several times, winning the competition, using an FPV drone they designed and built. The competition requirements have now changed due to the precise ability of the drone.