VATIS UPDATE Article

The International Water Mist Association’s supporting member The Colorado School of Mines, the United States, along with ADA technologies, the United States, have developed water mist Portable Fire Extinguishers (PFEs) for spacecraft applications. In December 2015 two of nine units were sent to the International Space Station (ISS). “The water mist fire extinguishers will replace the carbon-dioxide units which had been on board so far. There will be three more launches in spring to carry the other seven units to the ISS,” said Dr. Angel Abbud-Madrid, at Center for Space Resources.

Dr. Angel Abbud-Madrid is planning to come to the 16th International Water Mist Conference in Vienna, Austria, on 21st and 22nd September 2016 to give a presentation on the mentioned portable fire extinguishers. The payload consists of the first two (out of a total of nine) water-mist PFEs, which will replace carbon-dioxide extinguishers currently on the International Space Station. Three additional missions in the spring will launch the remaining PFEs, including two missions with Spacex and one more with Orbital ATK.

After several years of research, testing, and conducting experiments on a variety of NASA flight facilities (including drop towers, low-gravity aircraft, and a Space Shuttle experiment in 2003), the Mines researchers and their students found water-mist fire suppression technology to be more efficient and suitable for putting out spacecraft fires than any other suppression agent.