Mission control center

• 1. The Architecture of Flight Control

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  A staff of flight controllers and other support personnel monitor all aspects of the mission using telemetry. They send commands to the vehicle using ground stations. Personnel supporting the mission from an MCC can include representatives of the attitude control system, power, propulsion, thermal, attitude dynamics, orbital operations and other subsystem disciplines. The training for these missions usually falls under the responsibility of the flight controllers. These teams typically include extensive rehearsals in the MCC before any actual launch occurs.

  NASA Launch Control Center controls NASA launch missions prior to liftoff from facilities located at NASA's Kennedy Space Center on Merritt Island, Florida. Responsibility for the booster and spacecraft remains with the Launch Control Center until the booster has cleared the launch tower. Christopher C. Kraft Jr. Mission Control Center assumes responsibility for crewed missions after liftoff. The facility is located in Houston, Texas at the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center. NASA's Mission Control Center in Houston also manages the U.S. portions of the International Space Station (ISS).

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• 2. American Launch And Orbital Operations

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  Mercury Control Center was located on the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station and was used during Project Mercury. One of its still standing buildings now serves as a makeshift bunker for the media if a rocket explodes near the ground. Multi-Mission Operations Center at the Ames Research Center handles uncrewed spacecraft outside Earth's orbit. The Space Flight Operations Facility is operated by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. It manages all of NASA's uncrewed spacecraft outside Earth's orbit and several research probes within along with the Deep Space Network.

  Space Telescope Operations Control Center is located at Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. This center provides mission control for the Hubble Space Telescope. Payload Operations and Integration Center sits at the Marshall Spaceflight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. Science activities aboard the International Space Station are monitored around the clock there. The Multimission Operations Center at the Applied Physics Laboratory near Baltimore, Maryland controls spacecraft including the MESSENGER and New Horizons missions.

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• 3. Global Government Space Command Networks

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  Beijing Aerospace Command and Control Center is a command center for the Chinese space program which includes the Shenzhou missions. The building is inside a complex nicknamed Aerospace City. The city is located in a suburb northwest of Beijing. The Master Control Facility of the Indian Space Research Organisation is located at Satish Dhawan Space Centre, Sriharikota, India. JEM Control Center and the HTV Control Center sit at the Tsukuba Space Center in Tsukuba, Japan. These facilities manage operations aboard JAXA's Kibo ISS research laboratory and the resupply flights of the H-II Transfer Vehicle.

  European Space Operations Centre is responsible for ESA's satellites and space probes. It is located in Darmstadt, Germany. German Space Operations Center is responsible for DLR's satellites and other customers' missions. It is located in Oberpfaffenhofen near Munich, Germany. The Columbus Control Centre at the German Aerospace Center handles mission control for the European Columbus research laboratory at the International Space Station. Europe's Galileo global navigation satellite system is operated by two Galileo Control Centres situated in Oberpfaffenhofen, Germany and Fucino, Italy.

  The Mission Control Center of the Russian Federal Space Agency is also known by its acronym ЦУП or TsUP. It is located in Korolyov, near the RKK Energia plant. It contains an active control room for the ISS. It also houses a memorial control room for the Mir where the last few orbits of Mir before it burned up in the atmosphere are shown on the display screens.

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• 4. Private Sector Satellite Management

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  Axiom Space Mission Control Center sits in Houston, Texas. Boeing Satellite Development Center operates from El Segundo, California. This facility is in charge of several military satellites. The Kongsberg Satellite Services space operations center in Tromsø, Norway performs command and control for 13 satellites. Lockheed Martin A2100 Space Operations Center is located in Newtown, Pennsylvania. It is in charge of several military satellites.

  Parsons Corporation operates the Parsons Space Operations Center in Colorado Springs, Colorado to support command and control for the NOAA POES and DARPA Blackjack satellite programs. Satellite operator SES controls its fleet of more than 50 satellites from operations centers in both Princeton, New Jersey and Luxembourg. Space Systems/Loral Mission Control Center is based in Palo Alto, California. SpaceX Mission Control Center in Hawthorne, California serves as the primary launch control facility for the company's Falcon rockets.

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• 5. Training Rehearsals And Simulation Protocols

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  The training for these missions usually falls under the responsibility of the flight controllers. Teams typically include extensive rehearsals in the MCC before any actual launch occurs. Personnel supporting the mission can include representatives of the attitude control system, power, propulsion, thermal, attitude dynamics, orbital operations and other subsystem disciplines. These groups monitor all aspects of the mission using telemetry. They send commands to the vehicle using ground stations.

  NOAA operates its constellation of satellites from the Satellite Operations Control Center at Suitland, Maryland. Command and Data Acquisition facilities exist at Wallops, Virginia and Fairbanks, Alaska. Satellites controlled include JPSS and GOES. The Canadian Space Agency Robotics Mission Control Centre in Longueuil, Quebec plans and conducts Canadarm and Dextre operations at the International Space Station. The Centro de Operações Espaciais is operated by the Brazilian Armed Forces to support government satellites in orbit. Two Space Operations Centers are part of its structure: the main center in Brasília and the secondary center in Rio de Janeiro.