Flame burns out on NASA’s long-running spacecraft fire experiment

NASA not too long ago concluded the ultimate mission of its Spacecraft Fireplace Security Experiment, or Saffire, placing a blazing finish to an eight-year collection of investigations that offered insights into hearth’s conduct in space.

The ultimate experiment, Saffire-VI, launched to the Worldwide Area Station in August 2023 and concluded its mission on Jan. 9, when the Northrop Grumman Cygnus spacecraft it was flying on safely burned up throughout deliberate re-entry into Earth’s environment.

Dr. David City, principal investigator, and Dr. Gary Ruff, venture supervisor at NASA’s Glenn Analysis Middle in Cleveland, have led the Saffire venture from Northeast Ohio since its preliminary spark in 2016. All through the experiment collection, researchers gathered knowledge NASA will use to reinforce mission security and inform future spacecraft and spacesuit designs.

“How large a hearth does it take for issues to get dangerous for a crew?” City stated. “This type of work is completed for each different inhabited construction right here on Earth—buildings, planes, trains, cars, mines, submarines, ships—however we hadn’t completed this analysis for spacecraft till Saffire.”

Like earlier Saffire experiments, Saffire-VI befell inside a unit on an uninhabited Cygnus spacecraft that had already departed from the space station, making certain the protection of the orbiting laboratory and a extra consultant flight atmosphere. Nevertheless, this last iteration of the experiment was distinctive due to the upper oxygen focus and decrease strain generated within the take a look at unit to simulate the situations inside crewed spacecraft.

In the course of the 19 Saffire-VI experiment runs, the NASA staff and counterparts at Northrop Grumman made numerous changes to air situations. They then ignited a flame on supplies reminiscent of plexiglass, cotton, Nomex, and Stable Inflammability Boundary at Low-Pace materials. A bead-lined wire contained in the unit ignited the supplies.

“The Saffire circulation unit is a wind tunnel. We’re pushing air by means of it,” Ruff stated. “As soon as take a look at situations are set, we run an electrical current by means of a skinny wire, and the supplies ignite.”

Cameras inside allowed the staff to watch the flame whereas distant sensors exterior the Saffire circulation unit collected knowledge about what was occurring within the Cygnus automobile. The pictures and knowledge had been gathered in actual time earlier than being despatched to Earth for scientists to research.

“You have obtained a warmth launch fee and a fee of launch of combustion merchandise,” Ruff stated. “You may take these as mannequin enter and predict what is going to occur in a automobile.”

The subsequent decade of exploration and science missions will see astronauts flying deeper into space and to areas which have but to be explored. Although the Saffire experiments have been extinguished, NASA has realized helpful classes and gathered mountains of information on hearth conduct that may assist the company design safer spacecraft and achieve its formidable future missions.