Christopher C. Kraft Jr. Mission Control Center

NASA's Christopher C. Kraft Jr. Mission Control Center (MCC-H, initially called Integrated Mission Control Center, or IMCC), also known by its radio callsign, Houston, is the facility at the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, that manages flight control for America's human space program, currently involving astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS).
The center is in Building 30 at the Johnson Space Center and is named after Christopher C. Kraft Jr., a NASA engineer and manager who was instrumental in establishing the agency's Mission Control operation, and was the first Flight Director.NASA - NASA Names Mission Control for Legendary Flight Director Christopher Kraft
Nasa.gov (2011-04-14). Retrieved on 2013-09-06.

The MCC currently houses one operational control room in Building 30 from which flight controllers command, monitor, and plan operations for the ISS. This room has many computer and data-processing resources to monitor, command and communicate with the station. The ISS control room operates continuously. A second control room in the same building, which formerly hosted the Shuttle flight control team, can be set up for ISS operations should the need arise (e.g., during repairs or hardware upgrades in the main room), and also hosts training simulations.

Cape Canaveral (1960–1965)

All Mercury–Redstone, Mercury-Atlas, the uncrewed Gemini 1 and Gemini 2, and crewed Gemini 3 missions were controlled by the Mission Control Center (called the Mercury Control Center through 1963) at Cape Canaveral Missile Test Annex, Florida. This facility was in the Engineering Support Building at the east end of Mission Control Road, about 0.5 mile (0.8 km) east of Phillips Parkway. Mercury and Gemini launches were conducted from separate blockhouses at the Cape.

The building, which was on the National Register of Historic Places, was demolished in May 2010 due to concerns about asbestos and the estimated $5 million cost of repairs after 40 years of exposure to salt air. Formerly a stop on the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex tours, in the late 1990s, the control room consoles were removed, refurbished, and relocated to a re-creation of the room in the Debus Center at the KSC Visitor Complex.

Houston (1965–present)

Gemini and Apollo (1965-1975)

Located in Building 30 at the Johnson Space Center (known as the Manned Spacecraft Center until 1973), the Houston MCC was first used in June 1965 for Gemini 4. It housed two primary rooms known as Mission Operation Control Rooms (MOCR, pronounced "moh-ker").
These two rooms controlled all Gemini, Apollo, Skylab, and Space Shuttle flights up to 1998. Each consisted of a four-tier auditorium, dominated by a large map screen, which, with the exception of Apollo lunar flights, had a Mercator projection of the Earth, with locations of tracking stations, and a three-orbit " sine wave" track of the spacecraft in flight. Each MOCR tier was specialized, staffed by various controllers responsible for a specific spacecraft system.

MOCR 1, housed on the second floor of Building 30, was used for Apollo 5, Apollo 7, the Skylab and the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project ( Saturn IB) missions.

Mission Operations Control Room 2

MOCR 2 was used for all other Gemini and Apollo (Saturn V) flights (except Gemini 3) and was located on the third floor. As the flight control room for Apollo 11, the first crewed Moon landing, MOCR 2 was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1985. It was last used in 1992 as the flight control room for STS-53 and was subsequently converted back almost entirely to its Apollo-era configuration and preserved for historical purposes. Together with several support wings, it is now listed in the National Register of Historic Places as the "Apollo Mission Control Center". In January 2018, the first set of consoles in MOCR 2 were removed and sent to the Kansas Cosmosphere for archival cleaning, refurbishment, and restoration to Apollo-era configuration, for eventual display back in the control room. On July 1, 2019, the newly restored Apollo-era Mission Control was reopened to the public, after a two-year long effort to restore the room to its configuration as seen during the Apollo Moon landings. Period-appropriate accents were acquired, from cigarette packs and ashtrays to wallpaper and carpeting. The room is accessible via the tram tour at the nearby Space Center Houston visitors' center, but only from behind the glass in the restored Visitor's Gallery viewing room.

In July 2010, air to ground voice recordings and film footage shot in Mission Control during the Apollo 11 powered descent and landing was re-synchronized and released for the first time. This audio was used in creating an audio-visual presentation for the 2019 Mission Control update.

Space Shuttle (1981–2011)

When the Space Shuttle program began, the MOCRs were re-designated flight control rooms (FCR, pronounced "ficker"); and FCR 1 (formerly MOCR 1) became the first shuttle control room. FCR 2 was used mostly for classified Department of Defense shuttle flights, then was remodeled to its Apollo-era configuration. From the moment a Space Shuttle cleared its launch tower in Florida until it landed on Earth, it was in the hands of Mission Control. When a shuttle mission was underway, its control room was staffed around the clock, usually in three shifts.

In 1992, JSC began building an extension to Building 30. The new five-story section (30 South) went operational in 1998 and houses two flight control rooms, designated ''White'', and ''Blue''. The White FCR was used in tandem with FCR 2 for seven Space Shuttle missions, STS-70 through STS-76, and handled all following shuttle flights through the end of the program. When not in use for the shuttle program, the White FCR was reconfigured as a backup for the ISS FCR from time to time as needed (such as during periods of construction or upgrades in the ISS FCR).

International Space Station (1998–present)

The newer section of Building 30 also houses the International Space Station Flight Control Room. The first ISS control room, originally named the Special Vehicles Operations Room (SVO), then the Blue FCR, was operational around the clock to support the ISS until the fall of 2006.

FCR 1, meanwhile, had its original consoles and tiered decking removed after STS-71, and was first converted to a "Life Sciences Center" for ISS payload control operations. After substantial remodelling, mainly with new technologies not available in 1998, ISS flight control moved into the totally revamped FCR 1 in October 2006, due to the growth of the ISS and the international cooperation required among national control centers around the world.

Other facilities

Other MCC facilities include the Training Flight Control Room, sometimes referred to as the Red FCR, a training area for flight controllers; a Life Sciences Control Room used to oversee various experiments; the Simulation Control Area (SCA), primarily used during shuttle astronaut and flight control training; and an Exploration Planning Operations Center, used to test new concepts for operations beyond low-Earth orbit. Additionally, there are multi-purpose support rooms (MPSRs) which are staffed by backup flight controllers, who analyze data and run simulations as well as provide information and advice for the flight controllers.

Building 30 was named for Kraft on April 14, 2011.

MCC-21

From 2012 to 2014, the rooms used during the Shuttle program underwent upgrades in preparation for future human space flight activities. The ISS FCR 1, the White FCR, the Blue FCR, the SCA, and the MPSRs all had their consoles removed and replaced with modern hardware, in part to support the new operational concept of commercial companies having a presence in Mission Control. This project is known as Mission Control Center for the 21st Century, or MCC-21. The White FCR was officially completed and unveiled in April 2014. The modernized White FCR is used for flight controller training and occasionally for nominal ISS operations when FCR 1 is temporarily removed from service for repairs or upgrades.

Commercial Crew

In 2019, the first of the Commercial Crew vehicles to be controlled from Houston was launched: the Boeing CST-100 Starliner

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