• Question: how many computers control a mission?

    Asked by 8P form to Anne, Beth, COLFlight, Jon, Tom on 14 Oct 2015.
    • Photo: Columbus Flight Directors

      Columbus Flight Directors answered on 14 Oct 2015:

      Sergio:
      Hi!
      A simple answer is: A LOT!
      A big part of the mission control is what we call the “ground segment”, which is basically all the network of computers that make our computers in the control room work and remain “in contact” with the space station.

      Imagine that a signal (which can be the video from an astronaut, or a telemetry number like the temperature of a computer in Columbus, or the rotation velocity of a water pump) is generated on the ISS. From there, it goes up to some geostationary satellites and then is received on ground by the White Sands antennas in USA. From there, it is directed to transferred to Houston, from there to Munich, then to an experiment control centre (e.g. in France) and from there to the desk of a scientist in his university laboratory (e.g. in UK).

      Imagine how many computers are needed to keep all this ground network up and running. If one of these computers had an error, this would prevent us to perform the experiment.

      So one of the persons in the mission control centre is called “Ground Controller”. His/her task is to keep all these computers and the network up and running so that we can talk with the astronauts and receive the scientific data.

Comments