One solution to the Eco, ‘Elephant in the Room’- of space launches.
Everything burns. Given the right environment, all matter can burn by adding oxygen, but finding the right mix and generating enough heat makes some materials combust more easily than others. Researchers interested in knowing more about a type of fire called discrete burning used ESA’s microgravity experiment facilities to investigate.
In a series of parabolic flights and on sounding rockets launched from Sweden, a team from Professor Jeffrey Bergthorson at McGill University in Canada and Eindhoven University of Technology in The Netherlands investigated burning iron powder in zero gravity. Their research was pure physics, the scientists wanted to know more about discrete burning whereby flames do not burn through fuel continuously but jump from one fuel source to another. This form of fire hardly occurs naturally on Earth, but an example is a forest fire where one tree burns completely and the fire jumps to the next tree when the temperature increases enough for combustion.
Burning iron dust in experiments on zero-g aircraft and rocket flights allowed for the iron particles to float and ignite discreetly. High-speed cameras captured the spectacle and allowed the researchers to better understand the phenomenon, resulting in computer models that showed the ideal conditions to burn the fuel on Earth.
