Fire! How the Mir Incident Changed Space Station Safety

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Jerry Linenger dons a mask during his mission on Mir in 1997. Credit: NASA

Sixteen years ago, a fire on the Russian space station Mir erupted after a cosmonaut routinely ignited a perchlorate canister that produced oxygen to supplement the space stations air supply. Jerry Linenger, an American astronaut aboard Mir at that time, wrote about the incident that occurred on February 24, 1997 in his memoir Off the Planet:

As the fire spewed with angry intensity, sparks resembling an entire box of sparklers ignited simultaneously extended a foot or so beyond the flames furthest edge. Beyond the sparks, I saw what appeared to be melting wax splattering on the bulkhead opposite the blaze. But it was not melting max. It was molten metal. The fire was so hot that it was melting metal.

Linenger famously had some trouble donning gas masks, which kept malfunctioning, but he and the rest of the crew managed to put out the blaze before it spun out of control. The cause was traced to a fault in the canister.

Mir itself was deorbited in 2001, but the fire safety lessons are still vivid in everyones mind today.

Outside view of the Mir space station. Credit: NASA

NASA fire expert David Urban told Universe Today that a fire is among the most catastrophic situations that a crew can face.

You cant go outside, youre in a very small volume, and your escape options are limited. Your survival options are limited. That space can tolerate a much smaller fire than you can tolerate in our home. Thepressure cant escape easily, and the heat stays there, and the toxic products are there as well.

Urban, who ischief of the combustion and reacting systems branch of the research and technologydirectorateof theNASA Glenn Research Center, said NASA and Russia have learned several things from the incident that they have implemented on the International Space Station today:

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Fire! How the Mir Incident Changed Space Station Safety