NASA To Start Fire In Space

NASA is reportedly planning to start a fire in space for the second time with its Cygnus cargo spacecraft, which was recently launched on the Orbital ATK rocket last week. The spacecraft, which is supposed to restock the International Space Station (ISS), will be filled with garbage that will be set on fire, once it has delivered its payload.

The project is part of NASA's series of Spacecraft Fire Experiments called Saffire-II. As part of the test series, fire is started deliberately in space for making scientific observations. When Cygnus meets its fiery end, the samples of nine materials will burn along with it. A bevy of electronics and sensors will record the observations made during the burning process and transmit data about the fire.

According to reports, the purpose of the second fire test will be to observe flames that will help the scientific community to better comprehend how fire actually works in space. The observations could go a long way in teaching NASA to how to react in the case of explosions and other threatening situations in space, especially when human are planning deeper space missions. In addition, the test could also give more insight into knowing how to make fuel burn more efficiently on Earth itself.

Earlier this year, a similar fire was started in space to investigate how flames spread off the surface of our planet. A Cygnus cargo capsule was filled with more than 1814 kilograms of garbage, which comprised of cotton fiberglass material. Once the capsule was released from the space station, a fire was started inside it after some hours and the process was captured by sensors inside the module. Over the next few days, the capsule relayed back the data to NASA. Subsequently, NASA made a video clip that showed how smokey trails flew over the burning part, and the fire itself lasted for a duration of eight minutes.