US Patent Issued to Blue Origin Manufacturing on Sept. 15 for "Passively retracting pneumatic actuator" (Washington Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., Sept. 15 -- United States Patent no. 12,735,202, issued on Sept. 15, was assigned to Blue Origin Manufacturing LLC (Huntsville, Ala.).

"Passively retracting pneumatic actuator" was invented by Jeffrey Weng (Newcastle, Wash.) and Nicholas B. Greco (Seattle).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A pneumatic actuator and a vehicle using the pneumatic actuator is provided. The pneumatic actuator may be utilized for separating stages of a vehicle, such as a rocket. The pneumatic actuator includes a pushrod channel having a first gas orifice at a first end and a pushrod slidably received within the pushrod channel. The pushrod defines a receiving space and is movable between a retracted po...