Methodology
How OrbitFlame Works
OrbitFlame reads real test tables from NASA's Physical Science Informatics repository and turns them into rankings, comparisons and predictions for spacecraft and habitat fire safety. This page explains what each tool does with the data.
Where the data comes from
Every number comes from a file published on psi.nasa.gov: experimental tables, test matrices and investigation records for 20 flight and ground combustion investigations (BASS, Saffire, ACME, FLEX, SAME and others). Rows are used exactly as published. When a file does not report a value, it stays empty and is never estimated.
Experiment tables
One row per test run: fuel, pressure, oxygen, flow and measured outcomes.
Investigation records
Objectives, hardware and flight program for each experiment.
Metadata-only records
Investigations without a published test table appear in the explorer but not in rankings or predictions.
Browse the individual source files in the Research Library.
Units and conversion
Original units are always kept. Values are converted to SI only when the units are of the same kind, so a pressure is never compared with a concentration. Try two quantities below.
100000 Pa (pressure)
99973.9765 Pa (pressure)
In Pa: A = 100000, B = 99973.9765
Oxygen is reported as a mole fraction (shown as % or "mol frac"). Where a table does not state the unit for XO₂ or Xf, the standard combustion convention is used. Oxygen partial pressure is total pressure times mole fraction.
Habitat ranking
Mission Lab scores each investigation from 0 to 100 by how closely its best test matches a habitat: the International Space Station, a lunar base, a Mars habitat, a spacesuit or an Earth analog. Four match bars show where it fits.
Atmosphere
Closeness of oxygen partial pressure and total pressure.
Airflow
Overlap with the habitat ventilation range from NASA-STD-3001.
Gravity
Flown or ground gravity, with airflow-equivalent runs counted at half weight.
Fuel
Relevance of the fuel or material to what burns in that habitat.
No PSI test was flown at 0.16 g or 0.38 g. Moon and Mars scores therefore rely on microgravity runs whose airflow produces buoyancy comparable to partial gravity, and are best read as indicative.
Predictions
The Flammability & Extinction Lab fits statistical models to the real test rows. A prediction appears only if the model beats a naive baseline when whole experiments are held out; otherwise only the nearest real NASA tests are listed. Each output shows the model fit next to its estimate, and the table of nearest tests always shows measured values for comparison.
Estimates describe the range that NASA tested. They support research triage and are not a safety certification.
AI assistant
The assistant answers only from the indexed investigations. Each claim cites the record it came from, original units are preserved, and it declines to answer when the records do not contain the information. It does not use web search or earlier answers as evidence.
Limits to keep in mind
- Gravity is inferred. PSI tables have no gravity column. Zero gravity comes from each investigation's ISS or Cygnus flight record, and only ground-tagged rows count as 1 g.
- Gaps are not absence. An empty cell in the Technology Map coverage gaps means no indexed test, not that no research exists.
- Matches are comparisons. Scenario matching shows which investigations used similar conditions. It does not show that a material is safe or that a suppressant works.
- Blank means not reported. A value a file does not state is left empty and shown as not reported, never filled in.