Combustion in microgravity: Opportunities, challenges, and progress

The present paper discusses the opportunities provided by the microgravity environment for fundamental combustion research, emphasizes the potential of fire hazards in space and the challenges to devise rational fire prevention and control strategies, and reports on the recent progress in microgravity combustion research. Specific microgravity combustion phenomena discussed include flammability limits and near-limit flame propagation, flamefront instabilities, jet diffusion flames, flame stabilization, flame spreading over soiid and liquid surfaces, droplet vaporization and combustion, flame propagation in particle suspensions, and fire safety in space environments. Experimental facilities and instrumentation which are either currently available or are being planned for (ig combustion research are briefly discussed, and the need to conduct some of the combustion experiments onboard the Space Station Freedom is emphasized.