Self-Aligning Poppet

As NASA plans for manned missions to Mars, efforts are being made to identify technologies that must be improved to make such trips feasible. Without improvements in valve technologies, propellant and commodity losses will likely make long-duration space missions infeasible. Engineers at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center have developed a self-aligning poppet for low leakage valves a seat alignment technology that eliminates the need to precisely control interfaces between poppet sealing surfaces and the valve seat seal.