NASA will arrange a controlled fire in space on the ship Cygnus

It may sound strange, but NASA is really going to set fire in space. This is planned to be done on the Cygnus spaceship. Naturally, scientists and engineers are planning something similar not for entertainment and not for the show (although the show will turn out anyway). Arson is necessary in order to study the dynamics of ignition in a spacecraft in open space.

Until now, fire has been ignited in space (meaning not in open space, but on a ship), but it was a small flame. And in order to find out how the fire will behave on a spaceship, it is necessary to set this ship on fire. Ignition will be arranged using a special box with flammable material inside.

Previous "fires" were a maximum size of 10 * 10 centimeters. This does not allow simulating the course of a fire in real conditions. On Earth, fires in order to study their dynamics are arranged in buildings, aircraft, ships, even mines. Few people imagine what will happen if a spaceship lights up. What should the team do in this case? How will events develop? Unknown

The experiment was calledSAFFIRE, and consists of three stages. Steps 1 and 3 are a series of ignitions of samples of 15.7 and 37 inches in size. The experiment will be conducted in a box where air will be supplied so that the samples can burn. The duration of the fire is from 15 to 20 minutes. Scientists will set fire to samples to observe the spread of fire in an almost complete absence of gravity. Specialists want to know if there is a restriction on the size of the flame in such conditions, and what will be the dynamics of the development of the “fire”.

Operators will give the command "Burn!" only after the spacecraft has completed its task, delivering the cargo to the ISS. Next, Cygnus will retire a certain distance from the station, and only after that NASA will set fire to a dangerous cargo. Data collection will be carried out using a large number of different sensors. Information will be collected on oxygen, carbon dioxide, temperature, pressure. Thanks to the cameras, surveillance will be carried out in real-time mode.

It is also planned to install two cameras with a number of radiometric devices. Moreover, the authors of the idea believe that the spacecraft will not be completely destroyed, but will be able to bear the fire on its board. Observation data will be compressed and sent to Earth. The ship will be in orbit for several days to transmit all the accumulated information.