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> But when it comes to sending commands to the orbiting lab, that has to be done on site at JSC. > There’s the option of moving Mission Control temporarily to
by gregmac 9y ago
> But when it comes to sending commands to the orbiting lab, that has to be done on site at JSC.
> There’s the option of moving Mission Control temporarily to a hotel in Round Rock, Texas, before transitioning control more permanently to NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. This facility has a lot of spaceflight infrastructure and could potentially support operations for weeks.
This seems very surprising, as it sounds like there's not really a plan if something disastrous were to happen to JSC. I don't mean to say they couldn't figure it out -- I have no doubt of that -- I am just surprised that the best plan backup plan is migrating to another facility "for weeks" after a short transition in a hotel (is this a literal hotel, or something more akin to a 'carrier hotel'?).
- rtkwe 9y agoThere are also Russian and ESA mission controls. Normally it seems they do more science support missions than supporting the facility itself, though Russia of course runs support for Soyuz and Progress docking, but if something truly disastrous were to happen to JSC those mission supports could be transferred to another location. That comment is more 'this is how we have the security setup and for a temporary situation like Harvey it's not worth changing everything when we have an alternative plan' than 'there is absolutely no other way to control the station than physically logging in from JSC.' That's pretty clear given that their primary backup site is just a hotel.