NASA sets fire to an unmanned cargo spacecraft in the name of science

As part of research into astronaut safety on board spacecraft, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) set fire to one of its unmanned cargo ships on June 14..

The Spacecraft Fire Experiment, or Saffire-I as it’s called, was conducted on board the Cygnus spacecraft on its way back to Earth, that delivered the International Space Station’s largest ever payload earlier in March. NASA’s set fire to a 16x37-inch block of cotton-fibreglass fuel in a controlled setting they could observe remotely. According to lead researcher of Saffire-I, David Urban, all of NASA’s previous experiments involved igniting a material no larger than an index card, this is officially the largest ever space fire test.

The experiment concluded when the fuel burnt out on June 15, more than a thousand miles away from Cygnus’ starting point. 

The #Saffire-I sample ignites! Preliminary data indicates the sample burned for about 8 minutes. #NASAglenn pic.twitter.com/m4vL0Lid05

— NASA Glenn Research (@NASAglenn) June 16, 2016

NASA also plans to carry out two more fire experiments on board Cygnus; Saffire-II will “assess oxygen flammability limits” with a smaller sample, and Saffire-III will again ignite a large portion of fuel.