Monday, October 5, 2009

MCC - Apollo

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Mission Control Center
Building 30N at Johnson Space Center

Tour of Mission Control, part I of II! We've all seen various depictions of the Mission Control Center (MCC) activities in feature films and documentaries, so I won't go into exhaustive details and ruin the ambience.

It's much more interesting to head to the Mission Control gallery on Picasa and check out the photograph captions.

NASA Mission Control
Mission Control Houston

MCC features large multiple screens, consoles, and mission insignia, and for those who might like to know more about Flight Control Room positions, an ex-Fido at The Trench compiled a wonderful page to explain "Flight," "Capcom," "Guidance," FAO, MOD, and so on. Warning: More death by acronyms awaits...

The NASA website also has an interesting Mission Control FAQ in their education section, which answers critical questions, such as... How many people work in Mission Control during a mission? What do mission controllers do between missions? What kind of education does one need to become a flight controller?

Apollo Mission Control
Don't I wish...

The preserved Apollo era MCC was founded in 1961, and was one of the main mission control centers on Earth that oversaw Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, Skylab and early Space Shuttle missions.