U.S. space agency NASA said Wednesday it will intentionally light a "large-scale fire" on an unmanned cargo spaceship scheduled for launch next week as part of an effort to increase understanding of how an accidental fire might behave in space.
NASA has planned three such space flight safety experiments, all conducted inside the Orbital ATK Cygnus resupply vehicle, not on its way to the International Space Station, but rather after it leaves the orbiting lab and before it re-enters Earth's atmosphere.
"NASA's objective is to reduce the risk of long-duration exploration missions, and a spacecraft fire is one of the biggest concerns for NASA and the international space exploration community," said Jason Crusan, NASA's Advanced Exploration System director, in a statement.
The Spacecraft Fire Experiments, or Saffire, will be performed during the next three consecutive flights of the Cygnus vehicle, with the first scheduled for launch on March 22 from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
The experiments, to be remotely conducted by researchers on Earth, will take place in a three-by-three-by-five foot (0.9-by-0.9-by-1.5 meter) tall module carried aboard Cygnus.
NASA said it purposefully set fire to materials in space for research previously, but those samples have been limited to 10cm in length and width.
The first Saffire experiment, however, will assess a large-scale microgravity fire using sample material about 0.4 meter wide and 1.0 meter long, it said.
The second will assess oxygen flammability limits using samples about 5cm wide and 30cm long while the third will assess a second large-scale microgravity fire.
"Saffire will be the biggest man-made fire ever in space," said Gary Ruff, NASA's Spacecraft Fire Safety Demonstration project manager.
"Currently, we can only conduct small combustion experiments in the microgravity environment of the space station. Saffire will allow us to safely burn larger samples of material without added risk to the station or its crew."
Images and data captured from inside the Saffire module will be transmitted to Orbital ATK and relayed to NASA prior to Cygnus' destructive reentry to Earth.
Researchers from NASA and its partners will analyze the data and use it to further develop technologies to safeguard future astronauts from a spacecraft fire.
