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Feature  Control centres
Those working at the European ground control centres are engineers and technicians, trained in accordance with the ESA/ISS certification guidelines, to become flight controllers. This means that they are trained specifically to operate either Columbus or the ATV and are fully conversant with the ISS environment. The head of the flight control team is the Flight Director. The majority of the Columbus and ATV systems are operated automatically. Control centres monitor the correct performance of the planned operations and, in the case of changes or any malfunctions, prepare and integrate the necessary updates. Maintenance activities are carried out on board Columbus by the on-orbit crew and monitored by the control centre and the respective payload centre.
Both centres have two control rooms: one for real-time operation control and one for preparation activities, such as the training of controllers, simulations, etc. The second control room also acts as a backup for the first control room. As these two control rooms are located close to each other, there is always a back-up control centre, which can take over operations in case of a major disaster such as fire.
The Colombus Control Centre (COL-CC) is located at the German Space Operations Centre of the German Space Agency (DLR), in Oberpfaffenhofen, near Munich in Germany. This centre is operational 24 hours a day, seven days a week. COL-CC controls and operates the Columbus laboratory and is in close contact with the Mission Control Centre in Houston, USA which has overall responsibility for the ISS, together with the Mission Control Centre in Moscow. In addition, Col-CC coordinates operations with the ISS Payload Operations and Integration Centre at the Marshall Space Flight Centre in Huntsville, Alabama, USA, which is responsible for operating European experiments (payloads).
All the ground services for Colombus are provided by Col-CC. This includes communication services (voice, video and data) to the sites where ISS users are located, to the ATV-Control Centre, to the European Astronaut Centre (EAC), to industrial support sites and to the ESA management site at ESTEC.
This centre, which is located in Toulouse, France, on the premises of the French Space Agency, CNES, operates 24 hours a day seven days a week during the active and docked mission phases. ATV-CC is responsible for operating Europe's ATV and interfaces with the Mission Control Centres in Moscow and Houston, as well as with the Columbus Control Centre.
User centres User Support and Operation Centres (USOCs) are based in national centres distributed throughout Europe. These centres are responsible for the use and implementation of European payloads on board the ISS.
On behalf of users and under ESA management, the USOCs conduct the tasks needed to prepare and operate the facilities for experiments on board the ISS. The USOCs act as the link between the user and the ISS, and are the focal points for the preparation and operation of ESA payloads.
Once the payloads are in orbit, with the support of the Columbus Control Centre the USOCs operate the payloads for which they are responsible and receive data on the experiments being performed. In addition, USOCs interact with the scientists at their home bases by providing them with data on the experiments, and receiving and processing requests for scheduling experiments, and information and instructions regarding the experiments being carried out. Although each USOC has a different role, depending on the technical and operational responsibilities assigned to them, all USOCs act as ISS information centres for national users. This entails identifying potential users and familiarising them with the many possibilities that the ISS provides for both scientific and commercial use, in order to optimise the use of the Space Station. Europe's ISS USOCs are:
Last update: 16 January 2009
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