Development of a Cold Gas Propulsion System for the ... - SSL - MIT

esponse time was an important performance characteristic; as stated in section 3.1.4, the opening and
closing times of the solenoid valves had to be on the order of tens of ms or better in order for the
hopper to be controllable. For both the solenoid valves and the regulator, minimum mass was desired,
as is true for most components on flying vehicles. Finally, cost and lead time of the components were
also important considerations.
4.2.1 Thruster Solenoid Valves
In surveying available commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) flow control components, it became clear that
there were several general classes of solenoid valves, each of which had benefits and drawbacks. One of
these classes consisted of small valves marketed for process control in applications such as food or
chemical processing, the manufacture of small components, plumbing within dishwashers and other
appliances, etc. Most of these valves had fast response times on the order of ms, and the majority were
fairly inexpensive and available for immediate shipping. However, the problem with this class of valves
was that it was difficult to find any with both pressure and