Recent Advances in Solid Combustion Research under Microgravity: The FLARE Project

Abstract

FLARE, an international research project on fire safety, was initiated in 2012, and long-term on-orbit combustion tests have been conducted using SCEM on the ISS/Kibo. The objectives of the FLARE project are to investigate flame spread behavior over solid materials in microgravity and to establish a flammability evaluation method for providing an index for materials used in reduced gravity environments. This article presents an overview and history of the FLARE project, followed by recent on-orbit experimental results. Finally, the successive project, FLARE-2, is introduced as the future direction of the FLARE initiative.