Columbus Control Center

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with Columbus (ISS module). (Discuss)

The Columbus Control Centre is the Mission Control Center which is used to control the European 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) and EADS Astrium.

The Columbus Control Centre entered full time operation during the STS-122 Shuttle Mission, which delivered the Columbus module to the ISS. The module was attached to the ISS on 11th February 2008.

1 Identification and Call Sign
2 Support to USOCs and ATV missions
3 See also
4 References

[edit] Identification and Call Sign

The Columbus Control Centre is known by the acronym COL-CC. The crew on board the International Space Station use the call sign 'Munich' when calling down to COL-CC.

[edit] Support to USOCs and ATV missions

The Columbus Control Center is also responsible for providing the Ground Segement Services for all European manned space flight activities ^[1]. This includes connecting the User Support Operations Centres (USOCs) with the Columbus Control Centre, and routing data for the Automated Transfer Vehicles (ATVs) to the ATV Control Centre located in Toulouse ^[2]. ESA will use the ATVs to bring supplies and future science experiments to the ISS. The Columbus Control Center, "will supervise the ISS-based tasks of the unmanned European space transporter ATV."^[3]