A mission control center (MCC, sometimes called a flight control center or operations center) is a facility that manages space flights, usually from the point of launch until landing or the end of the mission. It is part of the

ground segment A ground segment consists of all the ground-based elements of a spaceflight, space system used by operators and support personnel, as opposed to the Satellite space segment, space segment and user segment. The ground segment enables management of ...

of spacecraft operations. A staff of

flight controller Flight controllers are personnel who aid space flight by working in mission control centers such as NASA's Christopher C. Kraft Jr. Mission Control Center or ESA's European Space Operations Centre. Flight controllers work at computer consoles a ...

s and other support personnel monitor all aspects of the mission using

telemetry Telemetry is the in situ collection of measurements or other data at remote points and their automatic transmission to receiving equipment (telecommunication) for monitoring. The word is derived from the Greek roots ''tele'', 'far off', an ...

, and send commands to the vehicle using

ground station A ground station, Earth station, or Earth terminal is a terrestrial radio station designed for extraplanetary telecommunication with spacecraft (constituting part of the ground segment of the spacecraft system), or reception of radio waves fr ...

s. Personnel supporting the mission from an MCC can include representatives of the

attitude control system Spacecraft attitude control is the process of controlling the orientation of a spacecraft (vehicle or satellite) with respect to an inertial frame of reference or another entity such as the celestial sphere, certain fields, and nearby objects, ...

, power,

propulsion Propulsion is the generation of force by any combination of pushing or pulling to modify the translational motion of an object, which is typically a rigid body (or an articulated rigid body) but may also concern a fluid. The term is derived from ...

, thermal, attitude dynamics, orbital operations and other subsystem disciplines. The training for these missions usually falls under the responsibility of the flight controllers, typically including extensive rehearsals in the MCC.

Government-operated Mission Control Centers

;America * NASA Launch Control Center controls NASA launch missions prior to liftoff from facilities located at

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the federal government of the United States, US federal government responsible for the United States ...

Kennedy Space Center The John F. Kennedy Space Center (KSC, originally known as the NASA Launch Operations Center), located on Merritt Island, Florida, is one of the NASA, National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) ten NASA facilities#List of field c ...

Merritt Island, Florida Merritt Island is a peninsula, commonly referred to as an island, in Brevard County, Florida, United States, located on the eastern Florida coast, along the Atlantic Ocean. It is also the name of an unincorporated town in the central and south ...

. Responsibility for the booster and spacecraft remains with the Launch Control Center until the booster has cleared the launch tower. *

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, Texa ...

assumes responsibility for crewed missions after liftoff. The facility (abbreviated MCC-H, full name ''Christopher C. Kraft Jr. Mission Control Center'') is located in Houston Texas at the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center. NASA's Mission Control Center in Houston also manages the U.S. portions of the

International Space Station The International Space Station (ISS) is a large space station that was Assembly of the International Space Station, assembled and is maintained in low Earth orbit by a collaboration of five space agencies and their contractors: NASA (United ...

(ISS). * Mercury Control Center was located on the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station and was used during

Project Mercury Project Mercury was the first human spaceflight program of the United States, running from 1958 through 1963. An early highlight of the Space Race, its goal was to put a man into Earth orbit and return him safely, ideally before the Soviet Un ...

. One of its still standing buildings now serves as a makeshift bunker for the media if a rocket explodes near the ground. * Multi-Mission Operations Center at the

Ames Research Center The Ames Research Center (ARC), also known as NASA Ames, is a major NASA research center at Moffett Federal Airfield in California's Silicon Valley. It was founded in 1939 as the second National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) laborat ...

* The Space Flight Operations Facility is operated by the

Jet Propulsion Laboratory The Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) is a Federally funded research and development centers, federally funded research and development center (FFRDC) in La Cañada Flintridge, California, Crescenta Valley, United States. Founded in 1936 by Cali ...

(JPL) in Pasadena, California and manages all of NASA's uncrewed spacecraft outside Earth's orbit and several research probes within along with the

Deep Space Network The NASA Deep Space Network (DSN) is a worldwide Telecommunications network, network of spacecraft communication ground segment facilities, located in the United States (California), Spain (Madrid), and Australia (Canberra), that supports NASA' ...

. and * Space Telescope Operations Control Center (STOCC) is located at

Goddard Space Flight Center The Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) is a major NASA space research laboratory located approximately northeast of Washington, D.C., in Greenbelt, Maryland, United States. Established on May 1, 1959, as NASA's first space flight center, GSFC ...

in Greenbelt, Maryland and provides mission control for the ''

Hubble Space Telescope The Hubble Space Telescope (HST or Hubble) is a space telescope that was launched into low Earth orbit in 1990 and remains in operation. It was not the Orbiting Solar Observatory, first space telescope, but it is one of the largest and most ...

''. *

Payload Operations and Integration Center The Payload Operations and Integration Center (POIC), part of the Huntsville Operations Support Center (HOSC), callsign Huntsville, or the Payload Operations Center, is a National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) facility located at th ...

at the Marshall Spaceflight Center in Huntsville, Alabama where science activities aboard the International Space Station are monitored around the clock. * The Multimission Operations Center at the Applied Physics Laboratory near Baltimore, Maryland controls spacecraft including the ''

MESSENGER Messenger, Messengers, The Messenger or The Messengers may refer to: People * Courier, a person or company that delivers messages, packages, or mail * Messenger (surname) * Bicycle messenger, a bicyclist who transports packages through cities * M ...

'' and ''

New Horizons ''New Horizons'' is an Interplanetary spaceflight, interplanetary space probe launched as a part of NASA's New Frontiers program. Engineered by the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) and the Southwest Research Institut ...

'' missions. *

NOAA The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA ) is an American scientific and regulatory agency charged with forecasting weather, monitoring oceanic and atmospheric conditions, charting the seas, conducting deep-sea exploratio ...

operates its constellation of satellites from the Satellite Operations Control Center (SOCC) at

Suitland, Maryland Suitland is a suburb of Washington, D.C., approximately one mile (1.6 km) southeast of Washington, D.C. Suitland is a census designated place (CDP), as of the 2020 census, its population was 25,839. Prior to 2010, it was part of the Suitland ...

and Command and Data Acquisition (CDA) facilities at Wallops, Virginia and

Fairbanks, Alaska Fairbanks is a Municipal home rule, home rule city and the county seat, borough seat of the Fairbanks North Star Borough, Alaska, United States. Fairbanks is the largest city in the Interior Alaska, interior region of Alaska and the second la ...

. Satellites controlled include '' JPSS'' and ''

GOES The Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES), operated by the United States' National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)'s National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service division, supports weather fo ...

''. * The

Canadian Space Agency The Canadian Space Agency (CSA; ) is the national space agency of Canada, established in 1990 by the ''Canadian Space Agency Act''. The President of the Canadian Space Agency, president is Lisa Campbell (civil servant), Lisa Campbell, who took ...

Robotics Mission Control Centre in Longueuil, Quebec plans and conducts '' Canadarm'' and '' Dextre'' operations at the

. *The Centro de Operações Espaciais (COPE) is operated by the Brazilian Armed Forces to support government satellites in orbit. Two Space Operations Centers (COPEs) are part of its structure: the main center (COPE-P) in

Brasília Brasília ( ; ) is the capital city, capital of Brazil and Federal District (Brazil), Federal District. Located in the Brazilian highlands in the country's Central-West Region, Brazil, Central-West region, it was founded by President Juscelino ...

and the secondary center (COPE-S) in

Rio de Janeiro Rio de Janeiro, or simply Rio, is the capital of the Rio de Janeiro (state), state of Rio de Janeiro. It is the List of cities in Brazil by population, second-most-populous city in Brazil (after São Paulo) and the Largest cities in the America ...

. ;Asia * Beijing Aerospace Command and Control Center is a command center for the

Chinese space program The space program of the People's Republic of China is about the activities in outer space conducted and directed by the China, People's Republic of China. The roots of the Chinese space program trace back to the 1950s, when, with the help ...

which includes the Shenzhou missions. The building is inside a complex nicknamed Aerospace City. The city is located in a suburb northwest of Beijing. * The

Master Control Facility The Master Control Facility (MCF) is a facility set up by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) in the city of Hassan in the Indian state of Karnataka. Established in 1982, this facility is responsible for monitoring and controlling ...

of the

Indian Space Research Organisation The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO ) is India's national List of government space agencies, space agency, headquartered in Bengaluru, Karnataka. It serves as the principal research and development arm of the Department of Space (DoS), ...

is located at Satish Dhawan Space Centre, Sriharikota, India. * JEM Control Center and the HTV Control Center at the

Tsukuba Space Center The Tsukuba Space Center (TKSC) also known by its radio Call sign, callsign Tsukuba, is the operations facility and headquarters for the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) located in Tsukuba Science City in Ibaraki Prefecture. The facil ...

(TKSC) in Tsukuba, Japan manages operations aboard

JAXA The is the Japanese national air and space agency. Through the merger of three previously independent organizations, JAXA was formed on 1 October 2003. JAXA is responsible for research, technology development and launch of satellites into o ...

's Kibo ISS research laboratory and the resupply flights of the H-II Transfer Vehicle. JAXAs satellite operations are also based here. ;Europe * European Space Operations Centre (ESOC) is responsible for ESA's satellites and space probes. It is located in

Darmstadt Darmstadt () is a city in the States of Germany, state of Hesse in Germany, located in the southern part of the Frankfurt Rhine Main Area, Rhine-Main-Area (Frankfurt Metropolitan Region). Darmstadt has around 160,000 inhabitants, making it the ...

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

. *

German Space Operations Center The German Space Operations Center (GSOC; ) is the mission control center of German Aerospace Center (DLR) in Oberpfaffenhofen near Munich, Germany. Tasks The GSOC performs the following tasks in national and international spaceflight: *O ...

(GSOC) is responsible for DLR's satellites and other customers' missions. It is located in Oberpfaffenhofen near

Munich Munich is the capital and most populous city of Bavaria, Germany. As of 30 November 2024, its population was 1,604,384, making it the third-largest city in Germany after Berlin and Hamburg. Munich is the largest city in Germany that is no ...

. * The Columbus Control Centre (Col-CC) at the

German Aerospace Center The German Aerospace Center (, abbreviated DLR, literally ''German Center for Air- and Space-flight'') is the national center for aerospace, energy and transportation research of Germany, founded in 1969. It is headquartered in Cologne with 3 ...

(DLR) in Oberpfaffenhofen, Germany. It is the mission control center for the European ''Columbus'' research laboratory at the

. * Europe's ''

Galileo Galileo di Vincenzo Bonaiuti de' Galilei (15 February 1564 – 8 January 1642), commonly referred to as Galileo Galilei ( , , ) or mononymously as Galileo, was an Italian astronomer, physicist and engineer, sometimes described as a poly ...

'' global navigation satellite system (GNSS) is operated by two Galileo Control Centres (GCC) situated in Oberpfaffenhofen, Germany and Fucino, Italy. * The French National Centre for Space Studies (CNES) ATV Control Centre (ATV-CC) is located at the Toulouse Space Centre (CST) in Toulouse, France. It is the mission control center for the European Automated Transfer Vehicles, that regularly resupply ISS. * The Rover Operations Control Centre (ROCC) is located in

Turin Turin ( , ; ; , then ) is a city and an important business and cultural centre in northern Italy. It is the capital city of Piedmont and of the Metropolitan City of Turin, and was the first Italian capital from 1861 to 1865. The city is main ...

, Italy. It will be the mission control center for the

ExoMars ExoMars (Exobiology on Mars) is an astrobiology programme of the European Space Agency (ESA). The goals of ExoMars are to search for signs of past life on Mars, investigate how the Martian water and geochemical environment varies, investigate ...

rover ''

Rosalind Franklin Rosalind Elsie Franklin (25 July 192016 April 1958) was a British chemist and X-ray crystallographer. Her work was central to the understanding of the molecular structures of DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid), RNA (ribonucleic acid), viruses, coal ...

''. ;Russia * The

Mission Control Center A mission control center (MCC, sometimes called a flight control center or operations center) is a facility that manages spaceflight, space flights, usually from the point of launch until landing or the end of the mission. It is part of the gr ...

of the Russian Federal Space Agency (), also known by its acronym ЦУП ("TsUP") is located in Korolyov, near the RKK Energia plant. It contains an active control room for the ISS. It also houses a memorial control room for the

Mir ''Mir'' (, ; ) was a space station operated in low Earth orbit from 1986 to 2001, first by the Soviet Union and later by the Russia, Russian Federation. ''Mir'' was the first modular space station and was assembled in orbit from 1986 to ...

where the last few orbits of Mir before it burned up in the atmosphere are shown on the display screens. * Titov Main Test and Space Systems Control Centre, mission control center in Krasnoznamensk, Russia.

Privately-operated Mission Control Centers

* Axiom Space Mission Control Center (MCC-A) in Houston, Texas. *

Boeing The Boeing Company, or simply Boeing (), is an American multinational corporation that designs, manufactures, and sells airplanes, rotorcraft, rockets, satellites, and missiles worldwide. The company also provides leasing and product support s ...

Satellite Development Center (SDC) Mission Control Center in El Segundo, California, US. In charge of several military satellites. *The Kongsberg Satellite Services (KSAT) space operations center in Tromsø, Norway performs command and control for 13 satellites. *

Lockheed Martin The Lockheed Martin Corporation is an American Arms industry, defense and aerospace manufacturer with worldwide interests. It was formed by the merger of Lockheed Corporation with Martin Marietta on March 15, 1995. It is headquartered in North ...

A2100 Space Operations Center (ASOC) in Newtown, Pennsylvania, US. In charge of several military satellites. *

Parsons Corporation Parsons Corporation is an American multinational technology-focused defense, intelligence, and infrastructure engineering firm. Founded in 1944, Parsons is headquartered in Chantilly, Virginia, and serves both government and private sector orga ...

operates the Parsons Space Operations Center (PSOC) in

Colorado Springs, Colorado Colorado Springs is the most populous city in El Paso County, Colorado, United States, and its county seat. The city had a population of 478,961 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, a 15.02% increase since 2010 United States Census, 2 ...

to support command and control for the '' NOAA POES'' and '' DARPA Blackjack'' satellite programs. * Satellite operator SES controls its fleet of more than 50 satellites from operations centers in both

Princeton, New Jersey The Municipality of Princeton is a Borough (New Jersey), borough in Mercer County, New Jersey, United States. It was established on January 1, 2013, through the consolidation of the Borough of Princeton, New Jersey, Borough of Princeton and Pri ...

and

Luxembourg Luxembourg, officially the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, is a landlocked country in Western Europe. It is bordered by Belgium to the west and north, Germany to the east, and France on the south. Its capital and most populous city, Luxembour ...

. * Space Systems/Loral Mission Control Center in Palo Alto, California, US. *

SpaceX Space Exploration Technologies Corp., commonly referred to as SpaceX, is an America, American space technology company headquartered at the SpaceX Starbase, Starbase development site in Starbase, Texas. Since its founding in 2002, the compa ...

Mission Control Center (MCC-X) in

Hawthorne, California Hawthorne is a city in southwestern Los Angeles County, California. It is part of a seventeen-city subregion of the Los Angeles metropolitan area commonly known as the South Bay (Los Angeles County), South Bay. As of the 2020 United States cens ...

is the primary launch control facility for the company's Falcon rockets.

References

{{Use American English, date=January 2014 Control center Rooms Spaceflight technology Command and control

Government-operated Mission Control Centers

Privately-operated Mission Control Centers

See also

References