Regolith and Saffire Payload Experiments
The regolith experiment called Strata-1 onboard the OA-6 Cygnus Spaceship will run for a year on the International Space Station and will examine how particles behave in space. We often imagine a big comet or asteroid as being a solid chunk of rock or ice, however that may be not the case. Several tubes of materials that might simulate particles on a low gravity celestial body (like an asteroid, comet, or small moon like Phobos) will be allowed to interact, clump, settle, break apart, and generally respond to the microgravity and acceleration/deceleration of the International Space Station. Personally I think this is one of the most important experiments of this mission because landing on or deflecting an Earth bound asteroid depends on understanding how it will interact with a spaceship from Earth. We don’t have to go back to the time of the dinosaurs to discuss impacts in our solar system. On Earth the recent Feb 2013 Chelyabinsk meteor, the 1908 Tunguska Event, and the July 1994 Jovian impact of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 act as warnings that we may someday need to visit and deflect a comet or asteroid in deep space.
An asteroid might look “solid” in a radar image but in reality it might be millions or billions of individual particles held loosely together. A spacecraft attempting to land on it might stir up the surface regolith particles and create a beehive like mess. Strat-1 will help us better understand how those particles might settle or interact with an approaching spacecraft.
University of Central Florida picture of Strata-1
This experiment also links the Swamp Works visit in that if we are mining regolith to make pavers or heat shields on Phobos or some other celestial body, we had better understand how the dust the mining robots kick up will behave.
For more information visit:
http://physics.cos.ucf.edu/microgravity/flight-projects/strata-1/
The only OA-6 Mission Experiment that will take place entirely on the S.S. Rick Husband Cygnus Spacecraft is the Saffire Experiment and will be the largest man made fire in space. After the spaceship is undocked it will maneuver away (unmanned) from the International Space Station and then conduct the fire experiment. After the experiment is complete it will reenter the atmosphere and harmlessly break up over the Pacific. Fire in space is something that immediately strikes emotions because of the Apollo 1 disaster that killed three astronauts, Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee. Although small fire experiments have been conducted in the past, this experiment will use a much larger piece of material. Hopefully Saffire will provide a better understanding on how a space fire will propagate, how the gases and particulates will behave, and develop better safety procedures on the ISS. The experiment was designed to stay on board Cygnus Spacecraft to not only minimize danger to the ISS but to also eliminate the need to “clean up” after the experiment is over. Below is a picture of the Saffire experimental box and a short video on burning droplets of fuel in space.
Figure of the Saffire Experiment from Space.com
NASA Johnson liquid fuel fire in space video:
Thanks very interesting article