VACCO Industries is proud to provide the high performance cold gas propulsion system for NASA's JPL MarCO CubeSat. Read More
VACCO has been selected by KAI to provide aerial refueling receptacles for its KF-X program. Read More
NASA Tech Briefs for VACCO's Helium Reclamation Plant! Read More
VACCO is a proud member of the Coalition for Deep Space Exploration (CDSE) Read More
Congresswoman Linda Sánchez visited VACCO’s corporate office in South El Monte on November 21, 2016.
VACCO employees and management team were all very excited to have her to visit our facilities.
We especially enjoyed her intelligence, attentiveness, and caring in her interactions with us.
Orbital ATK’s Antares rocket returned to flight with a new look following a two year long reconfiguration to incorporate RD-181 first stage engines. The launch took place on October 17th from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport at Wallops Island, Virginia.
This was the sixth flight of the Antares using VACCO supplied Check Valves, High and Low Pressure Latch Valves, Service Valves and Filters.
Antares was developed to launch Orbital’s Cygnus spacecraft to resupply the International Space Station, part of NASA’s Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) program. The Antares rocket first flew in April 2013 carrying a mass simulator designed to mimic a Cygnus vehicle along with four CubeSats.
“Today after nearly four years of non-use we opened latch valves and fired a pyrovalve to repressurize the propellant tanks on the Juno spacecraft. Everything went well as we had hoped.”
The events as told to VACCO by Lockheed Martin were as follows; Lockheed first opened the two VACCO high pressure latch valves which brought GHe back on line to pressurize the fuel tanks. The latch valves opened fine and the VACCO check valves showed proper crack and reseat. Then, they fired a pyrovalve and repressurized the OX tank (the same good check valve performance was repeated). After a 4 hour period the two high pressure latch valves were closed. The spacecraft was then pressurized for Juno’s Orbit Insertion phase or JOI and the valves were reopened Sunday afternoon (33 hours before JOI) for the orbit burn which we later learned to be as successful.
Lockheed Martin
VACCO Industries congratulates Lockheed Martin on their successful mission, and we are proud to be aboard the Juno spacecraft.
