By Qarla Diokno for stgist.
NASA has been igniting samples aboard a spacecraft in space to study fire risks as it develops better environment for space explorers.
Before we can colonize alien planets, including Mars, we need to understand the basics for creating a safe spacecraft. So NASA, the American space agency, has been igniting samples in microgravity to study how fire spreads there.
On November 21st, the agency set fire the second trash cargo in space aboard the private Orbital ATK Cygnus cargo spacecraft.
According to its website, NASA scientists on the ground ignited the Fire Experiment II, or Saffire-II, that day shortly after the Cygnus spacecraft departed the International Space Station, or ISS.
The said disposable private cargo spacecraft left Earth in October for its sixth contracted resupply mission to the space station.
The Saffire-II builds on the data captured by Saffire-I launched in June of this year. The latest of the mission ignited new materials including cotton-fiberglass blend, Nomex and glass that is used for windows of spacecrafts.
Fire in spacecraft, according to Gary Ruff, the project manager of Saffire, is one of the greatest crew safety concerns for the American space agency and other spacefaring nations. Learning more about how fire spreads in microgravity environment is critical to astronauts’ safety, particularly during longer space missions, like the planned Mars mission.
It is also safe to say that even Elon Musk’s planned mission to Mars, via the SpaceX, can take advantage of the Saffire results.
David Urban, the project’s lead investigator, said that Saffire is trying to answer two questions. First is will an upward spreading fire continue to grow, or the microgravity will limit the size? Second is what materials and fabrics will catch fire and how will they burn?
After the three-part program, NASA is planning three additional Saffire tests that will focus more on detection, smoke propagation, fire spread and how to suppress it.
The space fire experiment was sponsored by the space agency’s AES Program, or the Advanced Exploration Systems.
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