Space Liquid Transport Experiments in Tianyuan-1

Space liquid transport experiments in Tianyuan-1 were described in this paper. A space test system was established to evaluate the performance of two different vane-type propellant management devices (PMDs) as well as one porous media reservoir, in the space low-gravity environment. During the transfer, the Bond number was in the range from 1.2 × 10–3 to 0.12, and the Weber number was about 6 × 10–4, the liquid was retained over the inlet/outlet, most of the gas was oriented around the vent tube, liquid in both the supply or receiver tanks was controlled by the PMDs, the liquid–gas interface was stable. These results provide a valuable reference to the application of vane-type PMD.