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This list describe NASA's flight controllers, primarily at the Johnson Space Center (JSC) in Houston, but also associated positions at other organizations serving NASA.
| | This article needs additional citations for verification .(July 2008) |
This list describe NASA's flight controllers, primarily at the Johnson Space Center (JSC) in Houston, but also associated positions at other organizations serving NASA.
The flight control positions used during the Apollo era were predominantly identical to the positions used for the Mercury and Gemini vehicles. This was because of the similarity of the vehicle design of the capsules used for the three programs.
NASA currently has a group of flight controllers at the Johnson Space Center in Houston for the International Space Station (ISS). The Space Shuttle flight control team (as well as those for the earlier Gemini, Apollo, and Skylab programs) were also based there. Console manning for short-duration and extended operations differed in operational philosophy.
The Space Shuttle (and prior program) flight controllers worked relatively brief periods: The several minutes of ascent, the few days the vehicle was in orbit, and reentry. The duration of operations for Space Shuttle flight controllers was short and time-critical. A failure on the Shuttle could leave flight controllers little time for talking, putting pressure on them to respond quickly to potential failures. The Space Shuttle flight controllers generally had limited capability to send commands to the shuttle for system reconfigurations.
In contrast, the ISS flight controllers work 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. This allows the ISS flight controllers time to discuss off-nominal telemetry. The ISS flight controllers have the opportunity to interface with many groups and engineering experts. The mentality of an ISS flight controller is to preempt a failure. Telemetry is closely monitored for any signatures that may begin to indicate future catastrophic failures. Generally, ISS flight controllers take a prophylactic approach to space vehicle operations. There are command capabilities that ISS flight controllers use to preclude a potential failure.
Many Apollo program mission control positions were carried forward to the Space Shuttle program. However, other positions were eliminated or redefined, and new positions were added.
Positions remaining generally the same:
Positions eliminated or modified:
After retirement of the Space Shuttle in 2011, the operational concept of flight control of a launched crewed vehicle was used as the basis for the Boeing Starliner Commercial Crew vehicle starting in 2019.
The International Space Station flight control positions used by NASA in Houston are different from those used by previous NASA programs. These differences exist primarily to stem the potential confusion that might otherwise follow from conflicting use of the same name in two different rooms during the same operations, such as when the space shuttle was conducting mated operations with the space station. There are also differences in the control positions because of differences in the operation of the two. The following is a list of those flight controllers located in Mission Control Center – Houston. There are several other control centers which house dozens of other flight controllers that support the vastly complex vehicle.
Positions formerly used but eliminated or modified:
Starting in 2001, the ISS flight control room has consolidated six of the below positions into just two, TITAN and ATLAS, to reduce staffing during low-activity periods. This concept is known as Gemini. After Assembly complete, the Gemini concept was eliminated in the realignment of the core ISS flight control positions.
After "Assembly Complete" in 2010 (which was the name given to the phase following the completion of the ISS assembly using the Space Shuttle), the core ISS flight control positions were realigned and the Gemini manning concept eliminated. While the other specialty positions – ADCO, BME, EVA, ISO, ISE, OPSPLAN, OSO, PLUTO, RIO, ROBO, TOPO, and VVO – remain the same, the new core positions are:
The Orion program, later to become part of the Artemis program, had its own flight control team, mostly derived from Space Shuttle flight control positions. The Primary Team sat in the main flight control room (FCR), while the Support Team sat in the various multi-purpose support rooms (MPSRs) nearby. All positions named below had similar responsibilities to their Shuttle counterparts. [5] [6] The Orion flight control team operated out of the Blue FCR, which had previously been used in the early days of ISS. As this was an uncrewed mission, the CAPCOM and SURGEON were not needed on console.
With the start of the Commercial Crew program, the private companies operating the spacecraft manages their own Mission Control Center for launch, orbit, and entry operations. SpaceX built out its own mission control center inside its Hawthorne, California facility, known as MCC-X. Boeing leases out a flight control room from NASA inside the Johnson Space Center, and down the hall from the ISS flight control room, known as MCC-CST.
SpaceX manages its own Mission Control Center (MCC-X) inside its Hawthorne, California facility and has publicly revealed few details on its operations. About 25 flight controllers work in the control room during a crewed launch. [7] However, the company does have one high-profile flight controller, called the CORE.
Boeing, in contrast to SpaceX, largely pays NASA to staff its Mission Control Center during operations of the Boeing Starliner. Consequently, NASA has revealed a great deal about how the MCC-CST operates, and it is largely derived from the Space Shuttle flight control room, and the following positions are largely unchanged from Shuttle responsibilities: CAPCOM, EECOM, FAO, FDO, Flight, FOD, GC, GNC, INCO, PAO, PROP, RNDZ, Surgeon, and TRAJ. [10]
Some positions were formerly Shuttle back-room positions: Crew Systems, Nav, Pointing, Profile, Timeline, and Weather. The positions newly invented for Starliner are: CDH, FDF, MPO (combining the Shuttle's EGIL and MMACS controllers), Recovery, SDO, and Tablet
A spacecraft is a vehicle that is designed to fly and operate in outer space. Spacecraft are used for a variety of purposes, including communications, Earth observation, meteorology, navigation, space colonization, planetary exploration, and transportation of humans and cargo. All spacecraft except single-stage-to-orbit vehicles cannot get into space on their own, and require a launch vehicle.
The Space Shuttle program was the fourth human spaceflight program carried out by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), which accomplished routine transportation for Earth-to-orbit crew and cargo from 1981 to 2011. Its official program name was Space Transportation System (STS), taken from a 1969 plan for a system of reusable spacecraft where it was the only item funded for development, as a proposed nuclear shuttle in the plan was cancelled in 1972. It flew 135 missions and carried 355 astronauts from 16 countries, many on multiple trips.
Marshall Space Flight Center, located in Redstone Arsenal, Alabama, is the U.S. government's civilian rocketry and spacecraft propulsion research center. As the largest NASA center, MSFC's first mission was developing the Saturn launch vehicles for the Apollo program. Marshall has been the lead center for the Space Shuttle main propulsion and external tank; payloads and related crew training; International Space Station (ISS) design and assembly; computers, networks, and information management; and the Space Launch System. Located on the Redstone Arsenal near Huntsville, MSFC is named in honor of General of the Army George C. Marshall.
James Hansen Newman is an American physicist and a former NASA astronaut who flew on four Space Shuttle missions.
A mission control center is a facility that manages space flights, usually from the point of launch until landing or the end of the mission. It is part of the ground segment of spacecraft operations. A staff of flight controllers and other support personnel monitor all aspects of the mission using telemetry, and 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, typically including extensive rehearsals in the MCC.
Seymour "Sy" Abraham Liebergot is a retired NASA flight controller, serving during the Apollo program. Liebergot was an EECOM controller and was responsible for the electrical and environmental systems on board the Command Module. In 1970, he was part of the team that guided Apollo 13 back to Earth following the explosion that crippled the spacecraft.
Spacecraft call signs are radio call signs used for communication in crewed spaceflight. These are not formalized or regulated to the same degree as other equivalent forms of transportation, like aircraft. The three nations currently launching crewed space missions use different methods to identify the ground and space radio stations; the United States uses either the names given to the space vehicles or else the project name and mission number. Russia traditionally assigns code names as call signs to individual cosmonauts, more in the manner of aviator call signs, rather than to the spacecraft.
STS-117 was a Space Shuttle mission flown by Space Shuttle Atlantis, launched from pad 39A of the Kennedy Space Center on June 8, 2007. Atlantis lifted off from the launch pad at 19:38 EDT. Damage from a hail storm on February 26, 2007, had previously caused the launch to be postponed from an originally-planned launch date of March 15, 2007. The launch of STS-117 marked the 250th orbital human spaceflight. It was also the heaviest flight of the Space Shuttle.
Flight controllers are personnel who aid space flight by working in mission control centers such as NASA's Christopher C. Kraft Jr. Mission Control Center or ESA's European Space Operations Centre. Flight controllers work at computer consoles and use telemetry to monitor various technical aspects of a space mission in real-time. Each controller is an expert in a specific area and constantly communicates with additional experts in the "back room". The flight director, who leads the flight controllers, monitors the activities of a team of flight controllers, and has overall responsibility for success and safety.
STS-129 was a NASA Space Shuttle mission to the International Space Station (ISS). Atlantis was launched on November 16, 2009, at 14:28 EST, and landed at 09:44 EST on November 27, 2009, on runway 33 at the Kennedy Space Center's Shuttle Landing Facility. It was also the last Shuttle mission of the 2000s.
Barry Eugene "Butch" Wilmore is an American NASA astronaut and United States Navy test pilot. He has had three spaceflights, the first of which was an 11-day Space Shuttle mission in November 2009, to the International Space Station. Wilmore was designated as pilot with five other crew members on Space Shuttle Atlantis for the mission STS-129. He served as part of Expedition 41 to the International Space Station, and in 2024 returned to the ISS on the Boeing Crew Flight Test, the first crewed mission of the Boeing Starliner. As of October 2024, he is in space and is set to return to Earth in 2025.
The Columbus Control Centre also known by its radio callsign, Mission Control Munich, is the mission control centre which is used to control the Columbus research laboratory, which is part of the International Space Station (ISS). The control centre is located at the German Aerospace Center (DLR) facility in Oberpfaffenhofen near Munich, Germany. The centre is operated by the DLR, under contract from the European Space Agency (ESA).
Guidance, navigation and control is a branch of engineering dealing with the design of systems to control the movement of vehicles, especially, automobiles, ships, aircraft, and spacecraft. In many cases these functions can be performed by trained humans. However, because of the speed of, for example, a rocket's dynamics, human reaction time is too slow to control this movement. Therefore, systems—now almost exclusively digital electronic—are used for such control. Even in cases where humans can perform these functions, it is often the case that GNC systems provide benefits such as alleviating operator work load, smoothing turbulence, fuel savings, etc. In addition, sophisticated applications of GNC enable automatic or remote control.
NASA's Christopher C. Kraft Jr. Mission Control Center, also known by its radio callsign, Houston, is the facility at the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, that manages flight control for the United States human space program, currently involving astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS). The center is in Building 30 at the Johnson Space Center and is named after Christopher C. Kraft Jr., a NASA engineer and manager who was instrumental in establishing the agency's Mission Control operation, and was the first Flight Director.
A launch status check, also known as a "go/no go poll" and several other terms, occurs at the beginning of an American spaceflight mission in which flight controllers monitoring various systems are queried for operation and readiness status before a launch can proceed. For Space Shuttle missions, in the firing room at the Launch Control Center, the NASA Test Director (NTD) performed this check via a voice communications link with other NASA personnel. The NTD was the leader of the shuttle test team responsible for directing and integrating all flight crew, orbiter, external tank/solid rocket booster and ground support testing in the shuttle launch countdown. The NTD was also responsible for the safety of all personnel inside the pad after external tank loading, including the flight crew, about 10 go/no go reports. He reported to the Launch Director, who has another about 5 go/no go reports. The Launch director declares if a mission is go for launch.
TriDAR, or Triangulation and LIDAR Automated Rendezvous and Docking, is a relative navigation vision system developed by Neptec Design Group and funded by the Canadian Space Agency and NASA. It provides guidance information that can be used to guide an unmanned vehicle during rendezvous and docking operations in space. TriDAR does not rely on any reference markers positioned on the target spacecraft. Instead, TriDAR relies on a laser based 3D sensor and a thermal imager. TriDAR's proprietary software uses the geometric information contained in successive 3D images to match against the known shape of the target object and calculate its position and orientation.
Soyuz TMA-05M was the 114th flight of a Soyuz spacecraft. It was launched on 15 July 2012, transporting three members of the Expedition 32 crew to the International Space Station (ISS). The Soyuz remained docked to the ISS throughout the mission to serve as an emergency escape vehicle. The launch also coincided with the 37th anniversary of the Apollo–Soyuz Test Project. Soyuz TMA-05M successfully returned to Earth on 19 November 2012.
Development of the Commercial Crew Program (CCDev) began in the second round of the program, which was rescoped from a smaller technology development program for human spaceflight to a competitive development program that would produce the spacecraft to be used to provide crew transportation services to and from the International Space Station (ISS). To implement the program, NASA awarded a series of competitive fixed-price contracts to private vendors starting in 2011. Operational contracts to fly astronauts were awarded in September 2014 to SpaceX and Boeing, and NASA expected each company to complete development and achieve crew rating in 2017. Each company performed an uncrewed orbital test flight in 2019.
Michele Brekke (née Hank) is a former flight director in NASA Johnson Space Center (JSC) Space Shuttle Mission Control Center. She is notable for having been the first woman selected as a NASA flight director. She began the flight director training protocol in November 1985. On January 28, 1986, the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded moments after launch, destroying the orbiter and killing the entire crew. The Space Shuttle Program was in stand down for ~2 1/2 years while the accident was investigated. Brekke continued the flight director training protocol while the Space Shuttles were grounded. During this time, she was flight director for mission simulations in Mission Control. She also lead the On-Orbit Flight Techniques meetings, completing thorough reviews of nominal and malfunction procedures and adding rationale to the Flight Rules. In 1988, although offered a flight director assignment on one of the missions to follow return-to-flight, Brekke choose to leave the Flight Director Office, citing family priorities as the reason. Following several years as a Payload Integration Manager in the Space Shuttle Program Office, she was selected as the first woman NASA Flight Manager. She served as Flight Manager for six Space Shuttle missions. She retired from NASA in 2014 after 37 years of service. After retiring from NASA, she joined Special Aerospace Services where she was a flight manager for the Boeing CST-100 Starliner missions until 2022.
The Boeing Starliner Orbital Flight Test was the first orbital mission of the CST-100 Starliner spacecraft, conducted by Boeing as part of NASA's Commercial Crew Program. The mission was planned to be an eight-day test flight of the spacecraft, involving a rendezvous and docking with the International Space Station (ISS), and a landing in the western United States. The mission was launched on December 20, 2019 at 11:36:43 UTC or 06:36:43 AM EST; however an issue with the spacecraft's Mission Elapsed Time (MET) clock occurred 31 minutes into flight. This anomaly caused the spacecraft to burn into an incorrect orbit, preventing a rendezvous with the International Space Station (ISS). The mission was reduced to just two days, with the spacecraft successfully landing at White Sands Space Harbor on December 22, 2019.
Booster Systems Engineer (BOOSTER) Monitors main engine and solid rocket booster performance during ascent phase