For the fifth time, a team of 25 international scientists used the Northrop Grumman CYGNUS supply vehicle for the International Space Station to conduct experiments with large fires in space. This time, amazing data was transmitted from the return journey to Earth that even the combustion researchers could not have predicted: in weightlessness, a flame tends to spread in the opposite direction to the air flow. Accordingly, trying to blow out a flame on a spacecraft would be a really bad idea – if the blowoff speed is not high enough.
Press release on ZARM website.
