Issued patent
Miniature Separable Fill & Drain Valve
An issued NASA patent from the Technology Transfer catalog.
About this technology
Overview
Innovators at the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center have developed the Miniature Separable Fill & Drain Valve, a manually operated, two-part valve design for CubeSat propulsion applications. Miniature propulsion systems have been an area of significant investment over recent years as rising CubeSat and SmallSat adoption has precipitated the desire to increase the utility of such spacecraft. However, miniature propulsion systems require components that are much smaller than commonly available in industry. Due to specialized requirements for sensitivity to mass and volume as well as compatibility with the fluids used in CubeSat propulsion systems, the Miniature Separable Fill & Drain Valve was developed. This new valve design allows loading and draining of fluid while minimizing the flown component size and weight, having applications in CubeSat and miniature spacecraft propulsion systems. The valve design is also scalable, and thus may be suitable for terrestrial applications including industrial processing.