The European Space Agency (ESA) is Europe’s gateway to space. Its mission is to shape the development of Europe’s space capability and ensure that investment in space continues to deliver benefits to the citizens of Europe and the world.
Find out more about space activities in our 23 Member States, and understand how ESA works together with their national agencies, institutions and organisations.
Exploring our Solar System and unlocking the secrets of the Universe
Go to topicProtecting life and infrastructure on Earth and in orbit
Go to topicUsing space to benefit citizens and meet future challenges on Earth
Go to topicMaking space accessible and developing the technologies for the future
Go to topicThank you for liking
You have already liked this page, you can only like it once!
The Spacecraft Fire Safety Experiment-V (Saffire-V) successfully tested larger, more dynamic fires for over 26 hours inside Northrop Grumman’s Cygnus spacecraft, following its primary mission of delivering supplies to the International Space Station. After Cygnus departed the station on 6 January, operators on the ground, for the first time on a Saffire mission, lowered the pressure inside the spacecraft and backfilled it with oxygen to replicate potential atmospheric conditions that would likely be experienced inside future human spacecraft. After ignition, cameras and sensors monitored flame growth, temperature variations, and oxygen changes, which were translated into data. The data will be used to model fire response scenarios, as well as fire detection, combustion product monitoring, and post-fire cleanup. A sample of polymethyl methacrylate, also known as Plexiglas, was burned in the Saffire-V experiment. Ribs were manufactured into the material to see how the flame behaved when small structures were incorporated into larger materials. Researchers discovered that fires in microgravity typically grow and burn faster on the thinner ribs and materials as opposed to thicker samples on the right. See the full video here.