There's fire in space and it's not CGI or a computer game, NASA intentionally lit a working spacecraft to study how fire behaves in space. 

The spacecraft undocked from the International Space Station (ISS) before being an instrument to NASA's fire experiment. A few days after Cygnus cargo vehicle burned in space, NASA completed its data gathering and was able to release the footage of the largest man-induced fire in space.

NASA initiated the Spacecraft Fire Experiment or SAFFIRE-1 on June 14 when the Cygnus cargo spacecraft left the International Space Station (ISS). The experiment will aid the agency in studying how fire behaves in microgravity and is believed to be beneficial for the safety of space crew on missions beyond the confines of the Earth. "Fire safety will be a critical element as NASA progresses on the journey to Mars and begins to investigate deep space habitats for long duration missions," a NASA official said in a press release.

But after the successful burning of the spacecraft mid-flight, it took some time before NASA can collect data from the experiment. The agency also recently released the footage of the experiment after data gathering.

The sample burned for approximately eight minutes, according to a report by NASA Glen Research Center. From the camera aboard the now obliterated spacecraft, smoke trails were visible. The flow is uniform based on the observation by the side-by-side cameras installed inside the Cygnus spacecraft.

This experiment is crucial to NASA since the agency and the rest of the private commercial space service companies are planning to send people to deeper parts of the universe. How fire behaves in outer space is important,  in terms of safety, for the future deep space explorations.

But before the experiment was given a green light, scientists faced the predicament in choosing which spacecraft to burn in order to create the largest fire in space.  

"We tried for years to find a vehicle and a circumstance where this would work and initially we would get a 'not on my spacecraft' reaction," David Urban, lead investigator for the Saffire project said in an interview.

It was then decided to use Orbital ATK Cygnus, which is also scheduled to burn upon re-entry on Earth. The fire was conducted by using a 3-foot-long cotton-fiberglass material enclosed within the spacecraft.

Experts from NASA said that the success of the first of three experiments will lead to larger combustion tests to be conducted in the future. The next two fire experiments will focus on oxygen flammability and the behavior of even larger fires in space.

 

Tags NASA, fire, fire in space, ATK Orbital Cygnus, cygnus, saffire-1, saffire

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