Space Flight Operations Facility (The Center of the Universe) | |
![]() The Space Flight Operations Center, a National Historic Landmark, has been operational and staffed every day since 1964. | |
Location | Building 230, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California |
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Coordinates | 34°12′3.91″N118°10′25.01″W / 34.2010861°N 118.1736139°W |
Area | 122,074 square feet [1] (11,340 m²) |
Built | 14th May 1964 |
Architect | NASA |
NRHP reference No. | 85002814 |
Significant dates | |
Added to NRHP | October 03, 1985 [2] |
Designated NHL | October 3, 1985 [3] |
The Space Flight Operations Facility (SFOF) is a building containing a control room and related computing and communications equipment areas at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. NASA's Deep Space Network is operated from this facility. The SFOF has monitored and controlled all interplanetary and deep space exploration for NASA and other international space agencies since 1964. The facility also acted as a backup communications facility for Apollo missions. [1]
It was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1985 and is on the National Register of Historic Places. [1] [3]
Public tours are available with advance planning. [4]
In the early years, the operations control center of the Deep Space Network did not have a permanent facility. It was a makeshift setup with numerous desks and phones installed in a large room near the computers used to calculate orbits. In July 1961, NASA started the construction of the permanent facility, Space Flight Operations Facility (SFOF). The facility was completed in October 1963 dedicated on May 14, 1964. In the initial setup of the SFOF, there were 31 consoles, 100 closed-circuit television cameras, and more than 200 television displays to support Ranger 6 to Ranger 9 and Mariner 4. [5]
As of 2012, there were 22 spacecraft monitored from this facility. Depending on the operations of the spacecraft, they are scheduled to be online for 1 to 10 hours at a time. Notable is that the facility also processes the signal from Voyager 1 that is sent from about 11 billion miles from Earth. [6] With data feeding into the Space Flight Operations Facility from every NASA spacecraft beyond low Earth orbit, including rovers, orbiters, and deep-space probes, there is a plaque in the middle of the room designating the facility "The Center of the Universe." [7]
A list of other Deep Space Network facilities:
Deep Space 1 (DS1) was a NASA technology demonstration spacecraft which flew by an asteroid and a comet. It was part of the New Millennium Program, dedicated to testing advanced technologies.
Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) is a federally funded research and development center in Pasadena, California, United States. Founded in 1936 by Caltech researchers, the laboratory is now owned and sponsored by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and administered and managed by the California Institute of Technology.
Voyager 2 is a space probe launched by NASA on August 20, 1977, to study the outer planets and interstellar space beyond the Sun's heliosphere. As a part of the Voyager program, it was launched 16 days before its twin, Voyager 1, on a trajectory that took longer to reach gas giants Jupiter and Saturn but enabled further encounters with ice giants Uranus and Neptune. Voyager 2 remains the only spacecraft to have visited either of the ice giant planets, and was the third of five spacecraft to achieve Solar escape velocity, which will allow it to leave the Solar System.
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The Manned Space Flight Network was a set of tracking stations built to support the American Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, and Skylab space programs.
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