NASA has successfully carried out the latest set of its Spacecraft Fire Experiment (Saffire), which aims to study how fires behave in the environment of outer space.
The American space agency announced on Monday, Nov. 21, that it has ignited nine different sample materials aboard an unmanned Orbital ATK Cygnus cargo ship as part of its Saffire II experiment.
While researchers saw how a space-fire can start during Saffire I in June, they now discovered how such a blaze can spread in a microgravity environment during Saffire II.
NASA's Saffire Program
For Saffire I, NASA scientists ignited a 3.3-foot long by 1.3-foot wide cotton-fiberglass cloth sample onboard a different spacecraft. The resulting fire is considered to be the largest one ever to be set intentionally in space.
Saffire II, on the other hand, made use of nine different materials including a cotton-fiberglass composite, a flame-resistant material known as Nomex and a type of acrylic glass often used to create windows for spacecraft. Each sample measured at about 12 inches long and 2 inches wide.
Monday's experiment was carried out on an unmanned Cygnus cargo ship that left the International Space Station after spending a month docked into the orbital facility. The spacecraft is set to remain in orbit until Nov. 27, after which it will be sent to burn up in the Earth's atmosphere.
The third and final set of the Saffire program will feature a similar fire to the one ignited during the first experiment, albeit on a larger scale. It is scheduled for early 2017 and will once again be conducted on a robotic Cygnus cargo ship.
Importance Of The Space-Fire Experiments
Scientists have already gathered extensive information on Earth fires, including those that occur in mines, submarines and even in high-rise structures. However, not much is known about how fires behave in a microgravity setting.
NASA hopes that the Saffire experiments will help provide them with enough information how fires begin and spread in space. This will allow them to design safer transport vehicles, which can then be used to ferry astronauts to farther points in the galaxy in the future.
"A spacecraft fire is one of the greatest crew safety concerns for NASA and the international space exploration community," Gary Ruff, one of the researchers involved in the Saffire program, said.
In 1997, a fire broke out on the Russian Mir space station. It began when one of its oxygen-generating containers suddenly went up in flames. The Mir's crew had to contain the fire using extinguishers until it finally burned itself out.
