SPICE Status

September 21, 2009 - The SPICE gas bottles were returned on Shuttle Flight 17A STS-128, which landed on  September 11, 2009.  The SPICE gas bottles will be returned to Glenn Research Center to be refilled  with gas to be used with SLICE, Structures and Liftoff In Combustion Experiment.  The SLICE experiment will utilize the SPICE on orbit hardware with the refilled gas bottles to study the structure and stability of lifted flames.

August 21, 2009 - The SPICE experiment was launched on Shuttle STS-126 (Flight ULF-2) and operated on board the International Space Station in the Microgravity Science Glovebox during Increment 19 and 20 from April 29, 2009 through June 24, 2009 by crewmembers Mike Barratt and Koichi Wakata.  The SPICE experiment successfully “competed 155 test points measuring” the smoke point properties of jet diffusion flames in a co-flow as a function of three nozzle diameters, various fuel velocities and six fuel compositions.

Overview

The Smoke Point in Coflow Experiment (SPICE) will observe nonbuoyant round laminar jet diffusion flames in air coflow at standard temperature and pressure (STP) to:

• Determine the effects of fuel type, burner diameter and coflow velocity on smoke point properties.
  
• Identify test conditions for closed- and open-tip smoke point behavior and resolve mechanisms of these transitions.
  
• Determine the effect of fuel type, burner diameter, and approach to the smoke point on luminous flame shapes.
  
• Develop and evaluate models of soot formation, luminous flame shapes and flame radiation.
  

Data to be obtained from SPICE include video of flames, digital photographs of flames, radiometer output, fuel flow velocity, fan voltage, and coflow air velocity.

The purpose of this test was to measure the acoustic emission levels of SPICE for purposes of comparison with the noise emission limits for Microgravity Glovebox experiments.

Major SPICE Hardware

• Experiment assembly
• Still & video cameras
  
• Power conditioning box
  
• Video titler box
  
• Controller box
  
• Power cable
  
• Twelve fuel bottle assemblies
  
• Six fuels, 2 each of:
  – methane
  – propane
  – ethylene
  – propylene: 0, 25, & 50% gaseous nitrogen dilutions

On-Orbit Operations

• Install hardware in MSG & power up.
  
• Crew sets the experiment parameters and enables the data recording via the Control Box external to the MSG WV.
• Crew turns on the fuel flow and ignites the fuel.
  
• Using the control box the crew sets smoke point, the radiometer gain and snaps 3 pictures.
  
• Crew will then disable fuel flow, stop data recording and disable the ignitor.
  
• Crew will turn off the fuel flow and run MSG air circulation.
  
• Crew replaces the Micro Drive, Fuel Bottle Assembly or set up for the next test as necessary.

On-Orbit Videos