With Northrop Grumman\u2019s acquisition of Orbital ATK complete, the newly-formed Northrop Grumman Innovation Systems will now be the division within Northrop Grumman responsible for all Cygnus missions to the International Space Station as well as the execution of the extended CRS1 and the upcoming CRS2 contracts. As part of those contracts, the company will continue its focus on offering Cygnus as a testbed for new technology demonstrations, just as past Cygnus missions have done.<\/p>\n
The most notable use of Cygnus as a test bed for new technologies was the three part SAFFIRE (Spacecraft Fire Experiment) conducted over the OA-6, OA-5, and OA 7 missions. SAFFIRE saw Cygnus\u2019 controllers deliberately ignite a fire inside a special containment module in the spacecraft\u2019s pressurized cargo volume that contained material samples commonly found on the ISS as well as those under selection for NASA\u2019s Orion spacecraft.<\/p>\n
Prior to SAFFIRE, fire studies in space had been extremely limited due to the potentially life-threatening nature of such experiments during crewed missions. But Cygnus changed all of that, providing a safe, non-life-threatening space in which SAFFIRE researchers could study a realistic fire aboard a spacecraft thanks to the uncrewed and end-of-mission destructive nature of Cygnus flights.<\/p>\n
In this way, Cygnus provided NASA a real, safe, in-flight testbed for understanding how a fire works, spreads, and dies in microgravity while exposed to the various materials a spacecraft is built from. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n