NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, is home to one of the agency’s key capabilities – a multi-mission facility capable of distributing secure mission voice, video, and data anywhere in the world – known as the Huntsville Operations Support Center (HOSC).
The HOSC has advanced systems in place to allow users from all over the world to simultaneously access research experiments, mission and science operations data while still providing 24/7 support to crew and International Space Station operations.
Additionally, the HOSC has the capability to support all phases of missions including planning, testing, simulating, prelaunch, launch, and flight operations, as required by the various programs – International Space Station, Commercial Crew, and NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket – currently using the building’s facilities.
Space Station Payload Operations and Integration Center
In 2001, an addition to the facility known as the Payload Operations Integration Center began around-the-clock operations as the primary science command post for the International Space Station. From here, the payload operations team coordinates all U.S., European, Japanese, and Canadian scientific commercial experiments on the station, synchronizes payload activities of international partners, and directs communications between station crew members and researchers around the world with onboard experiments.
“For almost 20 years, Marshall’s payload operations facility has served as the nerve center for all the science that occurs daily on the space station,” said Dwight Mosby, Payload Mission Operations Division Manager. “We are mission-critical in the agency’s execution of science research.”
The Payload Operations Integration Center also houses the Laboratory Training Complex, which provides a hands-on training environment to support science operations aboard the space station and simulation rooms that are used to prepare for space station expeditions.
Commercial Crew Control Rooms
“The HOSC team has really stepped up to support the Commercial Crew Program,” said Steve Gaddis, deputy manager at Marshall for Commercial Crew Program’s Launch Vehicle Systems Office and the center’s lead for NASA’s Commercial Crew Program. “Marshall’s HOSC support team was attentive for the preparation, lessons learned, simulations, and upgrades required to make the agency’s SpaceX Demo-2 and Crew-1 missions a success. It’s amazing how quickly the team stepped up to provide every accommodation needed to keep this effort going as we all face limited access to our facilities in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Every person in the HOSC has a can-do attitude, and we are so thankful that they continue to serve as a pillar to our center – even in the midst of a global pandemic.”
Through the Commercial Crew Program, a new era of human spaceflight began as American astronauts once again launched on an American rocket from American soil to the International Space Station. NASA astronauts Robert Behnken and Douglas Hurley flew on SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft, lifting off on a Falcon 9 rocket May 30, from Launch Complex 39A in Florida, for an extended stay at the space station for the Demo-2 mission.
On Nov. 15, NASA’s SpaceX Crew-1 mission launched the first crew rotation to the space station. This mission – including agency astronauts Michael Hopkins, Victor Glover, and Shannon Walker, along with Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency mission specialist Soichi Noguchi – is the first of six certified crew missions NASA and SpaceX will fly as part of the agency’s Commercial Crew Program.
For both launches, members of the Marshall team were on console in the HOSC monitoring launch conditions and data via their headsets and voice loops to communicate with flight control teams at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, and SpaceX in Hawthorne, California.
“Using the HOSC for launches has protected our employees by not having to travel during the pandemic,” said Gaddis. “During the recent Crew-1 launch, the excitement was tangible for the team here at Marshall.”
Space Launch System Engineering Support Center
The HOSC is also supporting the SLS core stage Green Run test series at NASA’s Stennis Space Center near Bay St. Louis, Mississippi. The eight-part test series is a comprehensive test designed to bring the rocket’s immense core stage to life for the first time. The test series concludes with a “hot fire” as all four engines fire simultaneously for the first time. Green Run testing is an integral part of the agency’s Artemis Program – which will send the first woman and next man to the Moon.
Members of the HOSC team have travelled to Stennis to install multiple servers that allow live transmission of Green Run test data from Stennis’ Test Control Center to the HOSC, where team members will monitor telemetry for any anomalies and provide critical insight to the SLS main control team. From the HOSC, the test data will travel to Kennedy where the launch control team will monitor the telemetry and voice data from the center’s firing room, giving the flight controllers an opportunity for real-time simulation support as the SLS core stage is filled with propellant – a test case known as the wet dress rehearsal –and the engines are powered on for the first time in an eight-minute “hot fire”.
“The robust remote architecture built for the Payload Operations Center allowed HOSC team members to access testing data from their telework environments in the face of COVID-19,” said Kelvin Nichols, SLS task lead at Marshall. “This capability has allowed the SLS engineering support team to be as safe as possible throughout testing procedures.”
Team members will follow Marshall guidance to execute the last Green Run test – the wet dress rehearsal and hot-fire – supported on-site within the HOSC. From the HOSC, for every Artemis launch, the engineers in the support center are laser-focused on the propulsion system — the engines, boosters, and core stage that will produce 8.8 million pounds of thrust to get to orbit, and the flight computers that control the rocket’s journey. After the boosters and core stage drop away, their focus will be on the in-space stage that will fire its engine to speed up Orion so it can reach the Moon.
Looking forward, the HOSC is building operational flexibility, carving out even more operational space, and preparing to support small satellite missions – all activities to enable human exploration to the Moon and Mars.