CENTRAL OBJECTIVES: THE OBJECTIVE OF THE PROPOSED RESEARCH IS TO STUDY THE FLAMMABILITY (IGNITION AND FLAME SPREAD) OF SEVERAL THIN MATERIALS PARTICULARLY FABRICS AND THIN THERMOPLASTICS THAT HAVE BEEN USED OR HAVE THE POTENTIAL TO BE USED IN THE MICROGRAVITY TESTS OF THE SAFFIRE PROJECT. THE SAFFIRE PROJECT AIMS TO REDUCE THE UNCERTAINTY AND RISK IN THE DESIGN OF SPACECRAFT FIRE SAFETY SYSTEMS BY TESTING MATERIAL SAMPLES IN A SERIES OF FLIGHT EXPERIMENTS TO BE CONDUCTED IN AN ORBITAL SCIENCE CORPORATION CYGNUS VEHICLE AFTER IT HAS UNDOCKED FROM THE INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION (ISS). THE UNMANNED PRESSURIZED ENVIRONMENT IN THE CYGNUS VEHICLE ALLOWS FOR THE TESTING OF LARGE SAMPLE SIZES TO BE TESTED FOR MATERIAL FLAMMABILITY IN MICROGRAVITY WHICH WILL BE BASED ON THE CHARACTERISTICS OF FLAME SPREAD OVER THE SURFACE OF THE COMBUSTIBLE MATERIAL. THE SELECTION OF THE EXPERIMENTAL SETTINGS FOR THE FIRST THREE SAFFIRE EXPERIMENTS HAS BEEN BASED ON EXISTING KNOWLEDGE OF SCENARIOS THAT ARE RELEVANT YET CHALLENGING FOR A SPACECRAFT ENVIRONMENT. GIVEN THAT THERE IS ALWAYS AIRFLOW IN THE SPACE STATION ALL THE EXPERIMENTS ARE CONDUCTED WITH FLAME SPREAD IN EITHER CONCURRENT OR OPPOSED FLOW THOUGH WITH THE FLOW BEING STOPPED IN SOME TESTS TO SIMULATE THE ALARM MODE ENVIRONMENT IN THE ISS AND THEREBY ALSO TO STUDY EXTINGUISHMENT. THE MATERIALS WERE SELECTED BASED ON THEIR KNOWN PERFORMANCE IN NASA STD- 6001TEST-1 AND WITH DIFFERENT MATERIALS BEING CLASSIFIED AS CHARRING THERMALLY THIN AND THERMALLY THICK. CURRENTLY THE RESULTS FROM THOSE TESTS ARE BEING ANALYZED AND COMPARED WITH SIMILAR TESTS IN NORMAL GRAVITY TO DETERMINE THE DIFFERENT FLAMMABILITY AND MECHANISMS OF FLAME SPREAD IN EARTH OR IN A SPACECRAFT ENVIRONMENT.