CU-Boulder payload selected for launch on Virgin Galactic spaceship

A University of Colorado Boulder payload carrying a novel device designed to reduce the weight and cost of spacecraft fuel pumping systems has been manifested for launch on a suborbital space plane called SpaceShipTwo developed by the aerospace company Virgin Galactic.

The CU-Boulder payload consists of a lubrication-free, pistonless rocket fuel pump, said aerospace engineering sciences Associate Professor Ryan Starkey, principal investigator on the project. The device represents a potential advancement for rocket propellant pressurization and transfer that would reduce the weight and cost of spacecraft fuel systems.

Led by CU-Boulder, the project was initiated as a university-industry partnership between the university and Flometrics, a specialized engineering firm based in Carlsbad, Calif., that holds the patent on the device. Known as The Pistonless Pump Technology Demonstrator, the project was developed using a grant from NASA’s Game Changing Opportunities in Technology Development program.

- See more at: http://www.colorado.edu/news/releases/2014/06/03/cu-boulder-payload-sele...