A candle flame in Earth’s gravity (left) and microgravity (right) show the difference in the processes of combustion in microgravity. (NASA/Glenn Research Center)

Urban and his team at NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, OH, are developing an experiment for the International Space Station (ISS) that will help in designing smoke detectors that are sensitive enough to catch fires early, but not so sensitive as to cause false alarms.

Conventional smoke detectors work by detecting particles in the air that are about the same size as particles normally found in smoke. But smoke particles in space are bigger than those on Earth. So far, nobody knows exactly how big those particles are.

SAME will burn samples of materials normally found in space such as Teflon, silicon, cellulose, and Kapton, and measure the size of the particles in the smoke. Engineers will use this information to design the next generation of spacecraft smoke detectors. SAME is scheduled to travel to the ISS aboard the space shuttle next summer.

For more information, visit: www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/science/space_smoke.html .