Columbus-CC - a German Contribution to the European ISS Operations

Paper number

IAC-05-B4.2.08

Author

Mr. Thomas Kuch, Deutsches Zentrum fur Luft und Raumfahrt e.V. (DLR), Germany

Year

2005

Abstract

The paper describes the contribution of the German Space Operations Center in the preparation and execution of European ISS mission operations. In 1998 the German Aerospace Center DLR was awarded by ESA with the task of incorporating and operating the Columbus Control Center at its German Space Operations Center (GSOC) which is located at Oberpfaffenhofen, near Munich, Germany. Since 1983 GSOC has been playing an active role in several American and Russian human spaceflight missions like Spacelab or Euromir. Based on that heritage and the experience of more than 35 years of satellite operations the design, development and integration of the Columbus Control Center began in early 2002. Later in that year the first set-up of the core operations team has been initiated applying the integrated concept of own staff from GSOC complemented by experts from ESA and industry (EADS, Alenia, …). This approach creates beneficial synergies while reasonably exercising the cooperation with ESA, scientific user, payload provider and the industry. The early build-up and involvement of control center operations staff result in a variety of common test participation, common process, procedure, document and database development, common representation of Europe on the ISS International Partner level. This concept leads to integrated operations teams which consist of technical and management experts from all involved parties, with key functions distributed among the partners according to the expertise available.

The paper also sketches how the Columbus control center is embedded in the overall ISS scenario and describes which subsystems needed to be designed and implemented in the past years. The qualification readiness of Col-CC is foreseen for June 2005. At this time the control center will be formally handed-over to the operations team for an intensive training qualification and validation program until the docking of the Columbus module onto the ISS (planning date: October 2006). 

After the Col-CC inauguration in October 2004 many subsystems of the Columbus-CC will be operationally used for the first time in April 2005 for the Italian Soyuz Mission. This will be followed by taking over the European operations coordination for ISS Increment 12. The paper will describe the experiences made with the first operational activities in spring and in summer of 2005 and will give an outlook which role Col-CC will play in the future execution of the European ISS operations.

Abstract document

IAC-05-B4.2.08.pdf

Manuscript document

IAC-05-B4.2.08.pdf (🔒 authorized access only).

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