• Question: In your first work photo why do you have 6 monitors but only 4 turned on?

    Asked by Freznor to Simon on 10 Dec 2015.
    • Photo: Simon Challis

      Simon Challis answered on 10 Dec 2015:

      Hey Freznor…

      Youre very observant! In that control room I have 6 monitors:

      2xLeft Side for the Office LAN
      2xMiddle for Ops Support LAN
      2xRight Side for Ops LAN

      The Ops LAN are the displays where I can look directly at data coming down from the Columbus Module. Depending on the operation we are doing, I dont always need to look at this data. I have in any case my system experts in the room who have the job of monitoring this telemetry. As a flight director I rely on my team to tell me if things are going OK or not.

      The Ops Support LAN is the LAN most useful for following the crew. Here I can follow the procedures they are executing and watch them from the video camera feeds that we have set up usually during a crew activity in Columbus. This is really important to follow these two things as a Columbus Flight Director in case the crew calls down with a problem or because we often have integrated procedures where the crew and ground have to work together to get a new piece of equipment installed or an experiment completed.

      The Office LAN is where I can write emails, review and approve new or changes to operations documents and look up additional technical documentation like ops manuals, schematics and photos I need to do my job. I also have access to the internet from there which sometimes can also be a very useful source of information.

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