Expanded Telescience Support Center Monitors First Local Experiments
Science teams at NASA Glenn Research Center and their university partners
are now able to monitor and command their own International Space Station
experiments for the first time ever. Glenn’s newly-renovated Telescience
Support Center (TSC), a NASA telescience ground facility, provides the
capability to execute ground support operations of on-orbit space station
and space shuttle payloads.
“We are excited to be conducting science in space once again. Glenn’s
science and engineering teams have been anxiously awaiting the beginning of
space station payload operations so that we can get back in the business of
doing cutting-edge research in the microgravity environment of space,” said
Diane Malarik, telescience operations manager at Glenn.
The TSC has been improved and will soon be extended to include up to 20
consoles, which will provide enough room to accommodate 50 personnel working
the consoles simultaneously. This space will also support the nearly
continuous operations of the Fluids and Combustion Facility, which is being
designed to conduct a minimum of 10 science experiments a year. The TSC acts
as a hub in which users can either locate their operations staff within its
walls at Glenn or request that TSC operation capabilities be extended to a
more convenient location, such as a university.
As their introductory duty, TSC teams will monitor the operations of three
Glenn experiments delivered to space station aboard STS-100, launched on
April 19: Physics of Colloids in Space (PCS); Space Acceleration Measurement
System II (SAMS II); and Microgravity Acceleration Measurement System
(MAMS).
The concept of telescience is a result of NASA’s vision to provide worldwide
distributed space station ground operations that will enable payload
developers and scientists to control and monitor their on-board payloads
from any location-not necessarily a NASA site. This concept enhances the
quality of scientific and technological data while decreasing operational
costs of long-term support activities because principal investigators and
engineering teams can control their experiments more precisely by monitoring
and adjusting them in near-real time. This new capability to work from one’s
home site is especially important because it closely emulates researchers’
experience in ground-based labs when they conduct their experiments
personally.
TSC capability is provided with the coordination of the following partners:
NASA Marshall Space Flight Center and Huntsville Operations Support Center
in Huntsville, AL; the NASA Johnson Space Center and Mission Control Center
in Houston, TX; and other remote ground control facilities.
Information on Glenn’s TSC and its features is available on the internet at:
http://zeta.grc.nasa.gov/MSD/MSD_htmls/telescience.html
More information on Glenn’s experiments currently aboard space station is
available on the internet at:
http://microgravity.grc.nasa.gov/6712/PCS.htm
http://microgravity.grc.nasa.gov/MSD/MSD_htmls/acceleration.htm
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Note to Editors: Media representatives are invited to the facility on
Wednesday, June 6 from 1 – 3 p.m., where they can speak with Glenn’s TSC
staff and the scientists who are monitoring and controlling Glenn’s three
experiments. The opportunity is unique due to the experiments being in
various stages of activation and operation. Interested media representatives
should contact Barbara Kakiris or the Media Relations Office (216-433-2901)
in order to be cleared through security.
