Thursday, January 18, 2024

Inertial Guidance Module of a Peacekeeper (MX) inter-continental ballistic missile,

 


5 comments:

  1. Just a few steps beyond your childhood gyroscope balancing on a string…

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  2. and somewhere in between, stabilizes firing of tank's main gun. And perhaps sooner than later, concept will be applied to rifles.

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  3. I worked at the Anaheim plant where Boeing made most of the Inertial Navigation Units (INU) that the US has used in missiles, submarines, etc. The plant was first a Rockwell operation before merging with North American Aviation and then being purchased by Boeing. There was a fair bit of damage to a couple of the buildings in the 1994 Northridge quake, so they started tearing buildings down in the late 90s. The first set of GPS satellites were also produced there.

    I did not personally work on the INU line, but they had a cutaway model of an INU from a Minuteman III era missile in the company library along with some other technical trinkets. That was all very cool.
    -Rob Muir

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  4. Phenomenal engineering but it's been replaced by laser-ring Inertial Navigation Units in cruise missiles. Lighter, smaller, less current draw and the only moving parts are photons and electrons.
    Al_in_Ottawa

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    1. Yeah, it seemed ring-laser gyros were a coming thing in commercial inertial systems when I was leaving the Navy in '93.
      The best I ever flew with was twin Litton 72's.

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