>A six degree of freedom inertial unit was $125,000 in 1970 and resolved dif... | Hacker News

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schiffern on April 23, 2013 | parent | context | favorite | on: SpaceX Grasshopper Flies High

>A six degree of freedom inertial unit was $125,000 in 1970 and resolved differences of .1G. A 9 degree of freedom unit from Sparkfun Electronics [1] is now $125, and reliably resolves 1/4096'th of a G.

And the 1970s one weighed a lot more than 3.52 oz!

http://i.imgur.com/nrm2fUb.jpg

Gravityloss on April 24, 2013 | [–]

That's still peanuts in rocket money and scale.

All these things could have been done earlier if the politics was different.

DC-X used F-15 gyros / guidance with some software tweaks for example.

ChuckMcM on April 23, 2013 | [–]

So true, so true.

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