51
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During the Space Shuttle Columbia Disaster of 2003, Why Did The Flight Director Say, "Lock the doors."?
This is indeed part of the procedure that is invoked when a contingency has occurred. It is part of Standard Operation Procedure 2.8 - JSC Contingency Plan, which can be found in the Shuttle Flight ...
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45
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How much technical information is given to astronauts on a spaceflight? How much of it is left to the control center?
At least for shuttle, the MCC had a lot more detailed information than the crew does.
The crew was only provided with the information necessary for situational awareness and procedure execution. The ...
- 177k
36
votes
Robotics & Space Missions; Why is the physical presence of people in spacecraft still necessary?
Between them, Spirit and Opportunity spent the equivalent of 22 years performing geology fieldwork on Mars. In that time, they managed a scientific output comparable to what a single geology grad ...
- 14.1k
34
votes
How long is the ISS out of reach of all ground stations?
In order to answer this question, I tracked down Michael Lammers who the Flight Director for the ISS and he kindly offered to speak to me on the phone about ISS communications. (He is also a super ...
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32
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Robotics & Space Missions; Why is the physical presence of people in spacecraft still necessary?
One of the most important reasons is that robots don't make great interview partners.
A significant part of space missions is outreach and inspiring people. Another important part is giving people a ...
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29
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How much technical information is given to astronauts on a spaceflight? How much of it is left to the control center?
I supported several visiting-vehicle-to-ISS rendezvous from the Mission Evaluation Room (MER) that Organic Marble mentions in his answer (supporting RPOP), and was involved in some of the procedures ...
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28
votes
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What does 'Rocket is in self align' mean?
Up until that point in time, ground control has been regularly telling the vehicle where it is in inertial space relative to the center of the Earth, and in which direction it is pointing in inertial ...
- 72.5k
27
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During the Space Shuttle Columbia Disaster of 2003, Why Did The Flight Director Say, "Lock the doors."?
Does he mean lock the doors in the NASA building, in order to begin some internal investigation, and nobody is allowed to leave, as a matter of policy?
Yes, this. It's part of a standard procedure to ...
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26
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What are these enclosed regions on the Mission Control Center map?
The three big areas (light blue, green, yellow) outside of what looks like the enclosed area on the equirectangular projection are geosynchronous satellite TDRSS (Tracking and Data Relay Satellite ...
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23
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Which type of map projection is most commonly used in control rooms?
Equirectangular. Note that in all of the images that uhoh linked (a b c), the grid squares on the map are the same size and shape at all points on the map.
Here's an example from this question, ...
- 7,704
22
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Were there any CAPCOMs who were not astronauts?
Yes, from 2011 up till now and in the foreseeable future.
With the shrinking astronaut corps after the end of Shuttle and the 24/7/365 nature of ISS operations, it became impossible to completely ...
- 177k
18
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Were there any CAPCOMs who were not astronauts?
In at least the early part of the Gemini program, the ground-side network still wasn't able to relay all ground stations to a central control center, so multiple sites still needed CAPCOMs, and not ...
- 166k
18
votes
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Why was Houston selected as the location for the Manned Spacecraft Center?
First things first: Lyndon Johnson had very little, if anything, to do with the site selection for what was then called the Manned Space Center. The selection of the current location of what is now ...
- 72.5k
18
votes
How are the "lucky JPL peanuts" shared post-pandemic?
People received individual packages of peanuts and could sneak one under their mask.
This page shows people holding individual packages of peanuts.
And this video explains the procedure briefly.
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17
votes
Accepted
How does an array of concrete pillars protect a launch control bunker?
The citation you give is correct, albeit a bit misleading.
If a rocket fails so soon after launch that it strikes any of the structure on and around the launch pad, the result is in any case a huge ...
- 14.6k
12
votes
Accepted
Is it possible to control the operation of the Hubble Space Telescope from ground stations?
Yes, Hubble is actively controlled from the ground.
See this NASA page on Hubble Mission Operations
Examples include monitoring and adjusting the spacecraft’s subsystems (e.g., power, thermal, ...
- 6,906
10
votes
How has NASA's mission operations software architecture evolved?
The biggest single change in the Houston Mission Control Center (MCC) occurred in the late 1990s. This was the change from a mainframe based system architecture to a workstation based system with a ...
- 177k
10
votes
Accepted
Apollo Mission Operations Control Room 2 display, what do these numbers indicate?
They mark the candidate landing sites for the mission.
According to Wikipedia, five sites were considered for the first moon landing:
Sites 1 and 2 were in the Sea of Tranquility (Mare ...
- 166k
9
votes
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How did mission control work for the concurrent Gemini 6A and 7 missions?
They didn't have two functioning control rooms, so swapped off using the control room for the vehicle that was most active at the time, and used the distributed Mercury-style control for the less ...
- 177k
8
votes
During the Space Shuttle Columbia Disaster of 2003, Why Did The Flight Director Say, "Lock the doors."?
While this is much granier than the BBC snippet, it does contain the audio overlay and is the same video the BBC clip has, but contains the full event cycle. "Lock the doors" happens around 12:24
...
- 7,728
8
votes
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Apollo Mission Control Room 2, how do these decimal number displays work?
I'm not sure about this precise type of display (*), but there are ones very similar and that exactly match your description: Ten individual light bulbs, ten lenses and a mask with cut-outs for each ...
- 14.6k
8
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How has NASA's mission operations software architecture evolved?
I had the distinct honor of working for John Muratore on two distinct projects. One was the X-38. But before that, I worked on developing advanced software for his Real Time Data System project.
The ...
- 72.5k
8
votes
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What's a "delog"?
While the Mission Control Center's (MCC) Real Time Computer Complex (RTCC) was designed, as the name says, to receive and process data to the consoles in real time, it also recorded the voice and ...
- 177k
7
votes
How do control space launch vehicles ? Automotivelly (inbuilt commands) or from ground level?
The short answer to your question is GNC (Guidance, Navigation & Control). Mission planning is done based on nominal (normal) performance of all systems launched through a mean atmosphere for the ...
- 286
7
votes
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How do these Apollo mission control displays work?
As Russell Borogove wrote, scribing projector displays were used.
The displayed image was generated with three different types of projectors in parallel. The light from all these projectors was added ...
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7
votes
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What does the ISS Mission control center do?
The ISS is controlled from Flight Control Room 1 of the ISS Mission Control Center, located at NASA Johnson Space Center, Houston, TX.
Here's a layout of the room with the positions of each person/...
- 124k
7
votes
Robotics & Space Missions; Why is the physical presence of people in spacecraft still necessary?
Why is the physical presence of people in spacecraft still necessary?
Because robotics and AI aren't so developed as to totally replace humans (who are very versatile).
Having said that, there are ...
- 1,092
6
votes
Accepted
What event determined the transfer of control from Kennedy Space Center to Houston?
For Space Shuttle:
In the flight software, "tower clear" was defined as the end of the vertical rise phase when it was OK to start the Single Axis Rotation (aka "roll program"). This happened when ...
- 177k
6
votes
Why are there advertisements in the Russian ISS flight control room?
They needed the money.
Sometimes it seemed the Russian space program would do almost anything
to raise money.....
(the book goes on to describe renting out the TsUP's lobby to a Czech lighting-...
- 177k
6
votes
Accepted
What are the round screens show in the MOCR near position 19 (FDO?) during STS-49?
I asked my friend and former shuttle FDO Roger Balettie about this, he kindly gave me permission to quote him
..those are "Eidophor" displays - similar in nature to the much larger
versions back ...
- 177k
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