From centralized to distributed: The evolution of Space Station command and control

Abstract

This paper documents the evolution in the command and control (1) concept for the core systems of the Space Station. No previous National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) program has had the level of international involvement, or the agreements for International Partners to participate in the command and control processes, seen in the Station Program. In the early days of station planning, all command and control was centralized in the Space Station Control Center (SSCC) in Houston, much as command and control for the shuttle is carried out in the Mission Control Center (MCC). Each International Partner agreed to provide personnel to the SSCC to be part of the SSCC team. The Space Station Program has gone through a drastic evolution in its systems command and control concept. This evolution was driven by the addition of the Russians as a new Space Station partner as well as budgetary and political pressures within the original partnership agencies. This evolution has been incremental with technical assessments at each step to ensure that the overall safety of the flight crew and vehicle were not compromised. The resulting command and control concept for the station systems maintains overall command and integration functions at the SSCC but allows control of the various station segments to be performed in five different control centers around the world. This concept allows the European Space Agency (ESA), the National Space Development Agency of Japan (NASDA), the Russian Space Agency (RSA) and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) to participate in the daily operations of the Space Station systems they build, without the need to provide large numbers of personnel to the SSCC. Payload command and control for the experiments operated on the Space Station will not be addressed in this paper.