The Future of Columbus Operations

Kurzfassung

After 6 years of successful Columbus operations a decision point for the Columbus Control Center has been reached. The trade-off between operational flexibility and cost saving effects has to be well balanced. Based on the experience of the operations of a manned vehicle in orbit and the science goals for the experiments performed in Columbus over the next years the way forward has to be determined. Looking at the mid- and long-term plan the tasks for the Columbus Control Center will increase over the next years. On the one side a large number of new payloads and experiments are ready to be executed, which will enhance the science return from the Columbus module and will ask for a control center in full swing to support science operations. On the other side there is high activity time for European Astronauts on ISS in the next two years with Luca Parmitano already in orbit during Incr. 36/37, Alexander Gerst in Increment 40/41 launched in May 2014, Samantha Cristoforetti during Increment 42/43 starting December 2014 and Timothy Peake in Increment 46/47 from December 2015 onwards. This will be complemented by the shortterm flight of Andreas Mogensen in September 2015. Additionally the last ATV-5 flight will be supported by Col-CC in 2014. These missions will need full support from the control center to ensure the success of the mission and to achieve the envisaged science return. To be able to support these European payloads and missions and in addition to support the NASA payloads in Columbus continuously, a minimum infrastructure for the control center is needed. Col-CC has already severely reduced the costs for operations in the last years and increased the efficiency to support long-term Columbus operations until 2020 and beyond. Now a stable configuration is necessary to be able to achieve the goals set for Columbus science return in the next years.