Microgravity >> Combustion Science

The microgravity combustion science program supports research in how flames ignite, spread, and extinguish under microgravity conditions. Combustion, or burning, is a rapid, self-sustaining chemical reaction that releases a significant amount of heat. Examples of common combustion processes are burning candles, forest fires, log fires, the burning of natural gas in home furnaces, and the burning of gasoline in internal combustion engines.

Combustion is a key element of many of modern society's critical technologies. Electric power production, home heating, ground transportation, spacecraft and aircraft propulsion, and materials processing can use combustion to convert chemical energy to thermal energy or propulsive force. Although combustion, which accounts for approximately 85 percent of the world's energy usage, is vital to our current way of life, it poses great challenges to maintaining a healthy environment. Improved understanding of combustion will help us deal better with the problems of pollutants, atmospheric change and global warming, unwanted fires and explosions, and the incineration of hazardous wastes.

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The COSMIC (Combustion synthesis under microgravity conditions) project studied the microstructure formation of different material compounds starting from elementary powders pressed in pellets consolidaded using self-propagating high- temperature combustion synthesis.   Please click the image to see the combustion synthesis recorded during the Odissea mission.

Despite vigorous scientific examination for over a century, researchers still lack a full understanding of many fundamental combustion processes. The ability to conduct more controlled experiments in space, without the complication of gravity, provides scientists with an opportunity to examine these complicated processes closely. The objectives of NASA's microgravity combustion science program are to improve understanding of fundamental combustion phenomena affected by gravity, to use research results to advance combustion science and technology on Earth, and to address issues of fire safety in space.

Text source: Hampton University/NASA