It can see far more than a mile Henry. I have the part number of the
component here somewhere. They say that because of mountains and houses
and trees so people can understand it better.
You'd have to be beyond Leo for them to have problems I'm pretty sure.
They need a lot more testing I admit but they are pretty damn good.
Monroe
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: [AR] Re: Spin stabilized rocket
From: Henry Spencer <hspencer@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Mon, December 24, 2018 7:07 pm
To: Arocket List <arocket@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
On Mon, 24 Dec 2018, Mike Ross wrote:
...Looks like the device is for aircraft keeping the horizon in the same
place, but for rockets wouldn't the horizon be falling away in all
directions? To stay vertical, you would have to ensure the horizon was
falling away at the same rate on all sides.
The horizon doesn't fall away much until your altitude starts becoming
significant compared to Earth's radius -- i.e. seriously high -- and the
thing's fields of view are described as being wide. The horizon does get
more *distant*, which might make a difference for optical sensing.
In fact, they say: "...the reality is that sensor range is probably less
than 1 mile. Therefore, it does not really "see" the horizon. It sees the
average temperature profile all around and inside of 1 mile to determine
level attitude..." So, how well does this work when there's nothing but
air within 1 mile, or 10 miles, in all directions?
Henry