Hatches sealed on ISS pump-up space podule The hatches have been closed on the International Space Station's (ISS) Bigelow Expandable Activity Module, following three days' work by astronaut Jeff Williams installing sensors and other hardware inside the pump-up space podule. BEAM will spend two years attached to the orbiting outpost's Tranquility module, as NASA and …
So, how do they collect the data?
One assumes they'll start the fire before re-entry and monitor it until it hits the atmos at which point all comms are usually lost.
And by the time comms are possible, it'll have burnt up over the pacific :(
So, just a few minutes of data collection I expect?
So, how do they collect the data? One assumes they'll start the fire before re-entry and monitor it until it hits the atmos at which point all comms are usually lost.
Lots of details of the experiment, except imprecisely detailed.
The link above goes into some depth about the experiment, such as that it involves igniting a sheet of flammable material and has various sensors and cameras to watch the fire.
After that, it gets a bit fuzzy. It mentions safety precautions like ensuring the Cygnus is undocked before playing with matches. There's a 1-day delay after undocking before starting, and then the experiment follows a two-step process. (Step 1: turn it on, play with fire, record results. Step 2: transmit.) Once the data is transmitted, then the Cygnus de-orbits. However, the timing of the steps is not well detailed.
If I'm interpretting that page correctly, the experiment seems to put the Cygnus in several hold steps so it's not like there's a race to transmit as it incinerates simultaneously inside and out. Detach; move away from station; play with fire; transmit; then fire the retros and drop into the atmosphere. Or something along those lines.
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