Southwest Research Institute’s liquid acquisition device (LAD) was part of a payload on Blue Origin’s New Shepard suborbital rocket today (27th August) as it conducted several tests in an earth to space and back experiment. LADs help develop cryogenic fluid management capabilities during long spaceflights.
The purpose of the payload addition was to test five variations of the tapered LAD, a device intended to safely deliver liquid propellant to a rocket engine from fuel tanks, on how they perform in microgravity.
As most rocket engines used cryogenic liquid propellants as fuel, large amounts of fuel would have to be stored at low temperatures before being transferred to the rocket engine during any long spaceflight.
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