Yesterday I took a very early flight from Cologne to Munich for a one-day visit at the Columbus Control Centre, short: COL-CC.
COL-CC is responsible for planning and real-time ground control of all operations in the European laboratory Columbus on the International Space Station, both concerning the systems and the science (payloads).
I had a short brief by the increment leads of all the teams, who introduced their teams and provided an overview of the major activities foreseen during my time onboard, as well as any issues they are currently tracking. Of course, the picture is still a bit blurred and subject to change: we’re still 7 months from Increment 42 and some activities depend on the not-yet-finalized launch manifest of the cargo vehicles, bringing for example the equipment for new science experiments.
Whatever the details will turn out to be, it’s clear that there’s a challenging year ahead for Columbus, with a lot of new, complex experiment hardware to be launched, assembled and commissioned by my fellow Shenanigan Alex, first, and then by myself. But the COL-CC team is committed to make it all happen and I certainly will do my best to do my part right!
One of the key figures behind a mission to ISS is the Mission Director, the person who knows everything and coordinates the efforts of all the teams to make sure that things go smoothly and on schedule. It’s really a small world: my Mission Director Alex is an aerospace engineering graduate of the Technical University of Munich. Just like me, just one year apart!
Another key figure is the Increment Operations Lead, who is the lead flight director (COL-Flight) for the increment. In the picture you can see me with Simon (right) and Cesare in the Control Room. Simon will be responsible for the first part of my mision, Inc 42, and Cesare will take over for Inc 43.
There was also some time for little traditions, like putting a mission sticker at the entrance of the control room and signing it.
By the way, COL-CC also has a blog: especially exciting with the upcoming mission of my fellow shenanigan Alex!
https://www.dlr.de/blogs/en/desktopdefault.aspx/tabid-9260/
(Trad IT) Traduzione in italiano a cura di +AstronautiNEWS qui:
https://www.astronautinews.it/tag/logbook/
(Trad ES) Tradducción en español aquí:
https://www.intervidia.com/category/bitacora/
(Trad FR) Traduction en français par +Anne Cpamoa ici:
https://spacetux.org/cpamoa/category/traductions/logbook-samantha/
05/04/2014