The Microgravity Science Laboratory -1 crew aboard Columbia and science teams on the ground kept up a solid pace of experiment activities today. Payload Specialist Dr. Greg Linteris, and Payload Commander Dr. Janice Voss each conducted a series of Droplet Combustion Apparatus experiments. Linteris also corrected a glitch with the droplet imaging camera that hung up during one of the experiment runs.
Researchers report that the brief glitch had no scientific impact on the experiment.
Today's droplet combustion experiments were part of the second of a three phase study to map burning characteristics over a range of atmospheric pressures. The first phase, completed earlier in the mission, was conducted at one atmospheric pressure, the same as on Earth. In the second phase experiments are being conducted at one-half the Earth's atmospheric pressure. The third phase will use one-fourth Earth's atmospheric pressure. But, when the fuel droplets did ignite, they burned stronger and more vigorously than we expected.