This cargo resupply mission offers numerous scientific opportunities for researchers in a wide variety of areas, including an experiment that will set a large fire inside the Cygnus module toward the end of the flight. The experiment is called Saffire, short for Spacecraft Fire Experiment, and you can read more details about it here. The research is important for crew safety and is much larger than previous projects that produced tiny flames. From the full story:
“A spacecraft fire is one of the greatest crew safety concerns for NASA and the international space exploration community,” said Gary Ruff, Saffire project manager.
Saffire will involve far larger flames than previous experiments and will investigate the way fire spreads on a variety of combustible materials. Because the experiments will be conducted away from the space station, there is no risk to the astronauts aboard.
Each Saffire experiment will be remotely operated inside a 3 x 5 foot module, split into two compartments. One side of the module is an avionics bay that contains sensors, high definition video cameras and signal processing equipment. The other side contains the hardware required to ignite a large flame and burn the fabrics and materials inside.
I am working on a project proposal that has requirements for a camera that this project will most likely satisfy. Therefore, I am interested in the camera used on this experiment. The camera has to be small, robust, hi-definition, and radiation is negligible for the time that it will be in space. What model camera is used for the saffire project, and what were some considerations made when selecting a camera for this project?