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hey chris fukopian we're currently

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thinking about it but i do want to let

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you know that we do see ssc one so thank

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okay

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i just manually connected it to

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the

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um iss underscore msl underscore 2.4

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this is mission control houston in

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addition to this laptop work that

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cassidy is discussing with the team here

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on the ground now

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the main activity on his timeline today

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was some routine maintenance work on the

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combustions integrated rack that's a

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specialized experiment facility located

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in the destiny laboratory and it's

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actually part of the fluids and

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combustion facility which also houses

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the fluids integrated rack

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we have here on the phone with us today

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robert corbin the fluids and

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combustion facility manager from nasa's

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glenn research center thanks so much for

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joining us robert oh it's a pleasure

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well i was hoping you could tell us a

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little bit about these facilities and

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how what goes into designing a

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combustion

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um experiment facility to work in space

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and to work in space i expect that's a

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little a little tricky

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well the combustion integrated rack

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actually is maybe a second generation

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rack we used to fly on the space shuttle

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back in the

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in the 80s and cm1 and cm2 combustion

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module 1 combustion module 2

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and obviously of the major designs is to

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contain any fire that you're burning

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in some kind of controlled

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a chamber so the main feature of the

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combustion air graded rack is the

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combustion chamber

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okay and

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i guess the combustion chamber

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essentially has to in addition to

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holding the um experiment has to

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protect the rest of the station from

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that experiment

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yeah it does and it also sets the

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environment for which the principal

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investigator you know wants to see

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during a

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series of data points

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so you know chris will be going in

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to the chamber today to pull out you

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know basically the experiment and

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he'll be replacing the fuel reservoir in

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there so that they can

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continue to do their experimentation

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this week

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and we're actually seeing some video of

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him doing that work from earlier this

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morning now this recorded video that

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shows him

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looking inside the

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combustion integrated rack and and

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getting ready to do some of those change

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outs

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so it it holds i guess you can change

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out the different types of fuel so that

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the uh the researchers can can see the

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effects of different um different types

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of materials as they're

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ignited in space yeah i mean this one is

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all focused on on droplets you know

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liquid type

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combustion you know phenomena

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so he's replacing one of the fuel

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reservoirs and they're looking at

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heptane

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the researchers have a series of

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different fuels they look at

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and they also change the environment

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inside the chamber to either enrich it

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in helium or enrich it in xenon or

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whatever that have different

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characteristics

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so that they can see how it extinguishes

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they kind of understand a lot more about

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the phenomena

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of combustion

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by doing that

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and i i think one of the reasons they're

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interested in that is because um fire

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behaves a little differently in space

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than it does here on the ground is that

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right uh it does yes um first of all you

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know if you see like a candle you'll see

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like a you know convective flow around

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it and you'll see the point you know as

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it you know gravity

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obviously heat rises things like that in

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space you'll see a nice blue

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burning flame ball

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and yet it also burns much longer

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and what they're really concentrating on

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is what you know one one whether or not

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we can even ignite it in that particular

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environment

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and then two once we do

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they want to look at how it extinguishes

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in two different uh phenomena

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one of the things they're starting to

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see as well is what they call a cool

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flames

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phenomena where they um

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the flame is visibly out but it still

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has a very rapid evaporation and it's

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called cool flame so it's actually a

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flame

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yeah i remember reading about that i

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think it was a bit of an unexpected

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finding is that right

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uh well yeah they've seen it a little

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bit before i think in some of the

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shuttle experiments but now they're

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concentrating more and more on that

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um that area is is sort of new and

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trying to understand a lot more about

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what's happening there so that they can

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understand better you know some of the

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confusion phenomena on the ground such

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as knocking and you know diesel engines

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and things like that

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um so that they can make you know more

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efficient engines more combustion you

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know fishing combustion processes

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this uh wreck has been on the space

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station for a few years now i think and

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um do you feel like we've been getting

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good um good data out of it yeah see we

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launched in i believe was 2 000 and

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um

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and so yeah he was on sts 126.

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and so uh yeah we've been getting a lot

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of good data um

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you know there's a kind of the

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difference with the combustion

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experiments as they're developing a huge

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matrix so

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um you know like this particular set of

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experiments they're doing something like

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120 different you know

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data points just to understand better

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what they're seeing and what they're

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experiencing in the different

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atmospheres

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so it takes a long time and so some of

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these experiments aren't just a one-time

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deal it goes over years and so yeah

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we've been getting a lot of good data

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coming back

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great well um so the combustion

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integrated rack is combined with the

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fluids integrated rack into one facility

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what is that just for convenience and

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space or is there a reason to have those

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two together

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uh no actually the combustion integrated

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rack which chris is working on today

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you know obviously it's in u.s lab and

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then right to the right of it is the

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fluids integrated rack

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sometimes you'll see it on the camera

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it'll have a

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kind of a grid looking net in front of

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it because it's what they call an eris

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type rack which means it floats

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or can float

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off of some kind of an active isolation

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system

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so that's right to the

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right of the sur

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if you're looking at it

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but the fur and the third they have a

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lot of common hardware between them in

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terms of the way that it deals with its

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interfaces with the avionics to the

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station

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as well as its power distribution but

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and they also both have what we would

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kind of call a

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optics bench within those

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racks that kind of slides out when the

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crew needs to get access to the back of

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the rack

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so that's where some of the common areas

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are and then after that there's a lot of

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big differences

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the fur

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is a very large open volume

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and in it right now is the light

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microscopy module which is a microscope

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that

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is fully automated to do a lot of the

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science that we need to do in a very

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microscopic

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um

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you know research kind of area

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and so there is some big differences

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okay and um you just mentioned that the

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the microscope that is in the fluids

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rack at the moment is fully automated i

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think that's you know generally the case

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for these experiments that the crew

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doesn't have to

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do a whole lot of work with them other

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than get them started is that uh both of

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them yeah very similar um when these

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were designed the concept was that

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we pretty much thought crew

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the crew's time was going to be very

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precious and it's sort of still the case

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um so we did a lot of things where we

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wanted the crew to interact with our

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different pieces of hardware um to set

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up the experiments and but then they

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could

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close the doors and kind of walk away

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sometimes for days and sometimes for

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weeks and we can do experiments

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and then they would have to come back

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and and then just like he's doing today

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change out the fuel or

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change out an igniter that may burn out

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or whatever but

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but most of it we were not having a

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cruise

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hands-on doing the experiments um

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you know like the msg which is also next

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to the

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sur the crew has a lot of on hands um

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experiment work which obviously like

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doing

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but

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because of the nature of of

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the flames in the combustion rack and

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the microscopic

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nature of the work we had to do in the

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fur we had to automate a lot of that

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stuff

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okay

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well um anything else that we should be

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looking forward to with with either

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these

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facilities any experiments coming up

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that will be especially interesting

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uh well the lmm the like microscopy

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module um

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they're going to go in and we had to we

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had a little bit of an issue a couple

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weeks ago the crew is going to go in and

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take care of that and we'll be back up

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and running in a in a couple weeks

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again they'll be back looking at colloid

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type research

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to better understand

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the phenomena basically of particles

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interacting and making structures in

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space when you have no gravity

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and the combustion um

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he's also going to be doing something we

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haven't done since we launched which is

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not that complicated but

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the today chris will also be changing

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out the

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seals actually on the combustion chamber

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those do need to be replaced

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periodically just to maintain you know

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that we get a vacuum in there and we can

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keep everything that needs to stay in

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there in the chamber so he'll be doing

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that as well today

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okay

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well we'll watch out for that as well

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thank you so much for talking with us we

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thank you this is robert corbin the