NASA Wants to Solve One of the Biggest Mystery of the Space

Orbital ATK, who are partnering NASA, is planning to launch the Cygnus cargo spacecraft containing experiments and supplies into the orbit of the lower earth. It will dock with the ISS and provide them with the food they need. There is, however, more for the spacecraft to do as once it has been unloaded, it will be filled with the rubbish that has built up on the ISS, then will separate from it and will be set on fire by NASA.

Saffire is the name of the experiment, and the aim is to understand what happens when a fire is lit in a space vehicle. Despite the fact that NASA has sent many vehicles into space, they don’t know how fire acts as previous tests have involved small amounts of material. A much larger amount will be burned this time and will be well away from the ISS according to Gary Ruff at the Glenn Research centre.

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Oxygen and carbon dioxide will be measured and so will the temperature. It will be filmed and should take about 20 minutes and once the recordings are analysed, NASA will know more about fire detection. Once Cygnus re-enters the Earth’s atmosphere, it will blow up and be finished with.

Before its heated end, it will deliver 4 scientific experiments to the ISS and this will include Gecko grippers and a 3D printer. A Meteor will be on board and this instrument will determine the make-up of meteors that entire the earth’s orbit.

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