AVCO ball valves are used within a wide variety of industries ranging from oil and gas and petroleum to food and beverage production. Most recently, AVCO embarked on a very unique project within the aerospace sector supplying its trademark ball valves to help propel NASA.
NASA’s Project Morpheus required valves and instrumentation to be used within thrust, propulsion, and other space applications. AVCO tailored their 1500 series cryogenic ball valves to be utilised within the NASA Morpheus Project.
AVCO ball valves played an important part in supplying liquid oxygen and methane to the engine, as demonstrated in the image above. Circled in red is the 1500 series cryogenic ball valves above the thrusters. AVCO was requested to make changes to the design of the valve for the main engine, as well as agreeing to work with different metal alloys, improving the strength and weight ratio of the ball valve.