Space The ISS

Useful! check that text-formatted schedule at the ISS!

The U.S. Generation of a space station idea began as early as the 1950s, when U.S. space pioneer Wernher von Braun already had ideas for large orbiting space stations. He envisioned a wheel-shaped facility, slowly rotating to provide artificial gravity to its several thousand occupants. While such an orbital outpost exceeded available technologies for the foreseeable future, shortly after its founding in 1958 NASA began considering more modest space stations. With President John F. Kennedy’s 1961 pronouncement of a Moon landing as a national goal, plans for space stations took a back seat until after NASA achieved that objective. The Space Task Group (STG) that President Richard M. Nixon commissioned in 1969 to assess post-Apollo space objectives proposed an Earth-orbiting space station for the mid-1970s followed later by a much larger space base among several other projects. Economic realities of the time precluded such ambitious plans; President Nixon approved the Space Shuttle in 1972, the only STG-recommended project to receive funding. Approval of an American space station awaited a later president. In the meantime, the highly-successful experimental space station Skylab flew in 1973-4 using leftover Apollo hardware. During his Jan. 25, 1984, State of the Union address to Congress, President Ronald W. Reagan directed NASA to develop a “permanently manned space station and to do it within a decade.” His comments reflected his view of American pre-eminence in space but explicitly stated that the United States would invite other nations to join in the project and spelled out the benefits to be derived from such an orbiting platform. In the optimism following President Reagan’s announcement, NASA laid out an ambitious plan for a Space Station composed of three separate orbital platforms to conduct microgravity research, Earth and celestial observations, and to serve as a transportation and servicing node for space vehicles and satellites and as a staging base for deep-space exploration. NASA signed agreements with the European Space Agency (ESA) and Japan’s National Space Development Agency (NASDA) to provide their own research modules. In April 1985, NASA established a Space Station Program Office at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. Assessments of the original 'Dual Keel' design determined that it was overly complex to build and cost estimates for the ambitious space station continued to rise. Over the next several years, engineers and managers redesigned the facility and simplified it to a single-truss configuration with the pressurized modules clustered near the core and the solar arrays for power generation at the ends of the truss. In July 1988, President Reagan announced that the orbital facility would be called Space Station Freedom, and two months later the Unites States, Japan, Canada and nine ESA member states signed an Inter-Governmental Agreement (IGA) for its construction and utilization. The redesigned facility would focus on microgravity research. Space Station Freedom underwent several more redesigns to keep it cost-effective. In the meantime, the Soviet Union operated its Mir space station beginning with the launch of its first module in 1986. This new space station traced its heritage back to the first space station Salyut in 1971, with the Soviets making incremental improvements with ever more capable Salyut space stations in the 1970's and early 1980's. Mir was the first truly modular space station, with several elements added over the years to increase the facility’s research and habitation capabilities. With the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the future of Mir and its planned Mir-2 successor faced uncertainty in the new cash-strapped Russia. To take advantage of its extensive experience with operating space stations and keeping crews on orbit for up to a year, in 1993 President Clinton invited Russia to join the Freedom program as a full partner, essentially adding modules planned for Mir-2 to US, European, Japanese, and Canadian elements from Space Station Freedom. The new outpost would be called International Space Station (ISS). In preparation for ISS operations, between 1995 and 1998 seven US astronauts joined Russian cosmonauts as long-duration residents aboard Mir, with Space Shuttles providing transportation and resupply logistics. On Jan. 29, 1998, representatives from the United States, Russia, Japan, Canada and participating ESA countries (Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, The Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and The United Kingdom) met at the US State Department in Washington, DC, and signed an updated IGA on Space Station Cooperation. The modifications to the 1988 agreement were made necessary largely by the decision to include Russia in the partnership. The new IGA established the overall cooperative framework for the design, development, operation and utilization of ISS and addressed several legal topics, including civil and criminal jurisdiction, intellectual property and the operational responsibilities of the participating partners. Ten months after the signing of the 1998 IGA, the Russians launched the Zarya module, the first element of the ISS on-orbit segment, from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan and the first American element, the Unity Node 1 module, arrived via Space Shuttle Endeavour three weeks later, beginning the construction of the ISS

->The ISS at 20 Years!
As of November 2019, which constitutes the ISS 20th anniversary since the beginnings of its assembly, the ISS current configuration measures 357 feet end to end, with a mass of nearly 1 million pounds, as 221 spacewalks were performed for space station assembly, maintenance and upgrades. More than 2,700 investigations have been conducted on the space station from 108 different countries

The International Space Station (ISS) is a 15 nations and agencies partnership among NASA, the Russian Federal Space Agency, Canadian Space Agency, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), and 11 members of the European Space Agency (ESA) -Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom). On January 29, 1998, senior government officials from 15 participating nations met in Washington, DC, and signed agreements to establish the framework for cooperation about the ISS, a international treaty called the Intergovernmental Agreement (IGA) on Space Station Cooperation. That agreement superseded the earlier 1988 ISS IGA, the modification made necessary largely by the decision to include Russia in the partnership. The ISS was intended to provide six laboratories, as its internal space was be the equivalent of a Boeing 747 passenger cabin. The ISS was considered nearly complete by May 2010. The first 6-person crew on the ISS was onboard by May 2009 and the first and only crew comprised of astronauts from NASA, CSA, ESA, JAXA, and Russia, or all international partners to the station. The ISS had been progressively assembled by spacewalks and robots as the components and crew rotations were carried out by a mix of U.S. space shuttles and of various Russian vehicles like the Soyuz, the unmanned Progress cargoes, and the Proton rockets. ISS first flight took place on November, 20th, 1998. The International Space Station Multilateral Coordination Board (MCB) coordinates the orbiting laboratory's operations and activities among the partners as it is the space station's senior level management board. The U.S. portion of the ISS possesses the status of a U.S. National Laboratory sSince 2005, the U.S. Space Laboratory module at the ISS was catered towards NASA's exploratory, long-duration, manned endeavors. It also at that date was opened it up to private companies and startups. The management of the laboratory is now privatized). Due to the retirement of the U.S. Space Shuttle program with no new U.S. vehicles useable, manned access to the ISS since mid-2011 are now performed through Russian Soyuz only. By 2018, crews representing the 15 different countries that work together to advance the ISS are participating into a global, multinational effort into space research and a journey to Mars. Two-day trips to the International Space Station were the norm for a Soyuz craft until 2013, when the Russian space agency implemented a new technique to get crewmembers to the station in just 6 hours. Soyuz launches and landings are generally scheduled in spring and fall to avoid severe weather in Kazakhstan, which the Baikonur Cosmodrome is now part of. Crews on space station are called 'Expeditions,' a fitting name for a collection of explorers living on the frontier. In addition, each crew of three arrives in a Soyuz with a designated engineering number, plus a space station mission number and a crew-chosen call sign. Like a example, Expedition 30 have its main name for four months, then a part of Expedition 31 comes in and turns the mission in it, as names like Soyuz TMA-03M and Soyuz 29s, and call sign Antares are also used. Management teams on the ground are called 'Increments,' and have numbers that usually correspond to the Expedition numbers as these can get shifted to adjacent mission numbers too. A ISS crew was first commanded by a woman, NASA female astronaute Peggy Whitson, in 2008. NASA and the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos), and their international partners decided a one-year mission aboard the International Space Station in 2015 for one astronaut and one cosmonaut. They studied to understand better how the human body reacts and adapts to the harsh environment of space. By late 2014, participants into the ISS program pledged continued ISS utilization through at least 2020 and noted the earlier U.S. commitment to extend ISS utilization to at least 2024 as other governments should also decide a similar extension. As the space station orbits the Earth every 90 minutes, traveling at about 17,500 miles per hour, the crew sees about 16 sunrises and sunsets daily

see a useful page showing the steps of the ISS assembly. Of note that a thorough study of the ISS under all of its aspects is available like a NASA .pdf ebook as named 'The International Space Station: Operating an Outpost in the New Frontier'

The ISS in June 2008. courtesy NASA

The USA-Russia partnership about Shuttle-Mir dockings, which began in 1994, provided expertise for the ISS. Once completed, the International Space Station will have dimensions of 350 ft by 290 ft (108 by 88 meters), it will weigh 470 tons, and it will be able to harbour a crew of up to 7 for a period of 3 to 6 months. The ISS is orbiting at an altitude of about 230-218 miles (370-350 km) with an inclination of 52° to the Earth's equator. One ISS orbit is taking 90 minutes, with the Station flying at 5 miles per second (8 km/s). The astronauts aboard thus are having the Sun rise and set 16 sunrises a day! The ISS received its first crew, "Expedition One", in November 2000. The construction of the ISS has been hampered by the loss of Shuttle Columbia in February 2003, with the crews performing maintenance duties only then as the Space Shuttle flights resumed since 2005-2006. After that the Bush administration new U.S. "Vision for Space Exploration" set the next steps for the U.S. space and made the ISS like a low, Earth-orbit laboratory helping to study the questions related to long-duration space journeys, the new Obama vision might transform the ISS into a place of international cooperation. Since, the space station is intended to serve as a platform for research focused on human health and exploration, technology testing for enabling future exploration, research in basic life and physical sciences and Earth and space science. The ISS is to be considered mostly completed since 2010-2011 when the last flights of the shuttles marked the end of the Space Shuttle program. Most recently, as the USA have changed their space program under the Obama administration, the heads of agencies related to the ISS, in 2012, committed to increase use of the ISS as a test bed in space for the demonstration of critical technologies and the mitigation of human health risks for exploration. For the long-term, they discussed opportunities to use the ISS as a foundation for the development of future exploration capabilities. The ISS needs up to eight supply vessels a year bringing oxygen, water and food. A new, regenerative oxygen-production system allowing for more breathing air making, new ESA and Japanese cargo craft, more astronauts per crew have expanded the ISS capacities. The final piece of the regenerative environmental control and life-support system consists into the 'Sabatier system,' originally developed by Nobel Prize-winning French chemist Paul Sabatier in the early 1900s, which uses a catalyst that reacts with carbon dioxide and hydrogen, both byproducts of existing life-support systems onboard the ISS, to produce water and methane. Featuring a furnace, a multistage compressor, and a condenser/phase-separation system, the system by late 2010 eventually closed the loop of the regenerative system aboard the ISS. It interacts directly with the Oxygen Generation System, sharing a vent line. The excess carbon dioxide and hydrogen out of the Oxygen Generation System until then had been vented outboard. The Environmental Control and Life Support System (ECLSS) installed on the International Space Station includes two key components – the Water Recovery System and the Oxygen Generation System – that reduce the need for constant resupply of the basic needs from Earth leaves open valuable cargo space to other items. The ECLSS recycles about 90 percent of the water and about 42 percent of the oxygen in the spacecraft. The Water Recovery System provides clean water by reclaiming wastewater, including water from crew members’ sweat and liquid waste, cabin humidity condensation, and waste generated during spacewalks. The Oxygen Generation System produces oxygen necessary for the crew to breathe, as well as for replacement of oxygen lost due to experiment use, airlock depressurization, module leakage, and carbon dioxide venting. The OGS technology consists mainly of an electrolysis system, pulling oxygen from water by running an electric current through it. NORS, for 'Nitrogen/Oxygen Recharge System,' is the new system of tanks which will provide breathable air to the ISS starting since 2014. NORS is also used for operation of the airlock and the pressurized ammonia cooling systems. The Russian space agency had allowed some space tourists, paying $20 million by participant, to fly aboard some Soyuz headed to the ISS as that should not be possible anymore after in 2009 with the station's crews passing from 3 to 6 crewmembers. If the station had been traveling in a straight line instead of in orbit, until late 2008, it would have passed the orbit of Pluto and be in the outer reaches of our solar system. The international cooperation which allow -and is allowing- the construction of the ISS, between teams of humans and robots is to become a mainstay of space exploration throughout our solar system. The power provided by the large solar panels at the ISS are stored by large nickel-hydrogen batteries. The ISS, generally, is provided with cargo through three types of cargo ships, the Russian Progress, European ESA ATV and Japanese HTV spacecraft (check more about those cargo-providing spaceships). The atmospheric drag, generally, brings to that visiting resupply vehicles or space shuttles lead their thrusters to reboost the altitude. The higher the orbit, the less frequent the reboosts. When solar activity rises, the atmospheric density at the ISS altitude range increases causing increased drag on the vehicle which brings to raise the orbit to save fuel. Other considerations related to the altitude at which the ISS is orbiting include the amount of orbital debris and the amount of solar and cosmic radiation to which crew are exposed. ISS planners however must strike a balance between the advantages of a increased altitude and the need to keep low enough to allow easy access to cargo-ferrying craft. At a given altitude, for example, the ISS uses about 19,000 pounds of propellant a year to maintain a consistent orbit. With a slightly higher altitude, the station is expected to expend a dramatically reduced 8,000 pounds of propellant a year only, translating too into that resupplying craft will spare on their ability for more food, water and other goods instead of fuel. A sole boost using 10,000 pounds of fuel is used to raise the ISS altitude for such a saving. Debris avoidance maneuver (DAM) are performed when needed to shift the ISS orbit from the one of a threatening space debris. Interestingly, the Zvezda service module, part of the ISS basic modules, keeps possessing thrusters. A red threat level, NASA's highest, is flagged when a space debris is projected to pass within 3 miles (5km) from the ISS. Since 2012, emergency manoeuvres at less than 24 hours’ notice are possible using Russia’s Progress supply ship as none may be in harbour at the moment. Such a alert may too prompt a change of orbit or the crew taking shelter in one of the Soyuz attached to the Station as two Soyuz capsules are always docked at the ISS like lifeboat, with one Souyz for three crewmembers

The retirement of the Space Shuttle program by 2010 is heralding a period when USA will lack any spaceship to ferry astronauts to and from the ISS. NASA has contracted with the Russian space agency for ISS crew members launching on four Soyuz vehicles in 2013 and return on two vehicles in 2013 and two in 2014. The price paid is $55.8 million per astronaut as the price was of $26.3 million per astronaut only. NASA had already agreed to pay as much as $51 million a seat for flights in 2011 and 2012, before the latest increase. Private-built new ferrying craft are also a option as unmanned cargo craft will be provided to NASA by two American companies, the California-based company Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX), and Orbital Sciences of Virginia. The Russian Poisk module in November 2009 and further ones at the horizon 2011, are to be used for all what is Russian docking, spacewalks, storage or science. The U.S. segments of the ISS are to be used for all what US and their allies. A common interface to link future spacecraft ranging from crewed to autonomous vehicles and from low-Earth orbit to deep-space exploration missions, and ships between them, has been released in 2010 as this standardization effort will ensure interface commonality without dictating any particular design behind the standard interface and allow varied vehicles to dock to the ISS. A new sensor technology is to make it easier and safer for spacecraft to rendezvous and dock to the International Space Station. It consists of an eye-safe lidar Vision Navigation Sensor, or VNS, a high-definition docking camera, as well as the avionics and flight software. Both sensors will provide real-time three-dimensional images to the crew with a resolution 16 times higher than the current space shuttle sensors. This next generation system also provides data from as far away as three miles – three times the range of the current shuttle navigation sensor. Beyond the usual the S/G1 and S/G2 channels, which use S-band, the ISS, since 2013 is also allowing scientists to follow a experiment at the station in real time using new channels, called S/G3 and S/G4, using Ku-band. As far as the developing question of the space debris is concerned, NASA typically moves the ISS, when there is a 1-in-10,000 chance of a debris striking. Multiple space debris alerts occurs every month as, most times, the debris passes well clear of the station. NASA works to maintain a safety box of 15 miles around the space station, as well as about a half-mile above and below. The cost of the ISS, from the development and assembly to the running costs during at least 10 years is estimated to 150$ billion and shared over a period of 30 years between all the participant nations or agencies. The ISS, like a international cooperation and partnership project is relying upon a set of ground facilities spread all over the world! The International Space Station Program brings together international flight crews, multiple launch vehicles, globally distributed launch, operations, training, engineering, and development facilities; communications networks, and the international scientific research community. Elements launched from different countries and continents are not mated together until they reach orbit, and some elements that have been launched later in the assembly sequence were not yet built when the first elements were placed in orbit. Each partner has the primary responsibility to manage and run the hardware it provides. The international partnership expertise provided by the activities at the ISS is, for some, heralding what the space activities worldwide are bound too, with more international cooperation and involvement. Russians latery however expressed their will to de-orbit the ISS by about 2020, which is not without reference to the fact that a concurrent space station, the one of the Chinese, should be operational by that date

click to a diagram of science activities performed at the ISS 1998-2012. diagram courtesy NASA

• in the USA, as NASA -with its field centers- is the major contributor, the ISS facilities are the following: the Johnson Space Center (JSC) in Houston, Tx., directs the station program, mission control operates the U.S. on-orbit segment (USOS) and manages activities across the station in close coordination with the international partner control centers. The Johnson Space Center flight controlers moved in October 2006 to a new mission control room, which is one of the two original control rooms commissioned in the center in 1965, as it was upgraded to the current standards of technologie and comfort. JSC is the primary center for spacecraft design, development, and mission integration and also the primary location for crew training. At the Johnson Space Center (JSC) in Houston, a high tech training facility exists to train the astronauts to the ISS operations. The Boeing Company too is involved, in cooperation with the Johnson Space Center into the U.S. segment of the Space Station. The Kennedy Space Center (KSC), in Cape Canaveral, Fla., prepares the station modules and space shuttles for each mission, coordinates each countdown, and manages space shuttle launch and post-landing operations. Once the ISS completed, the Space Station Processing Facility at Kennedy Space Center continues to support the orbiting laboratory in a number of ways, like preparing payloads for launch by Japanese HTV cargo craft -which are flown to Japan after trucked into Chicago. A complicated combination of ground and ocean ferry transfers then deliver to Tangashima, as a NASA on-site coordinator is sent to JAXA launch site. The facility also performs periodic maintenance tasks and installation of the ISS electrical buses or manages plug-and-play components that have periodic replacement schedules. The Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) Payload Operations and Integration Center (POIC) controls the operation of U.S. experiments and coordinates partner experiments aboard the station as it features a mission control room for science research on the International Space Station. At the POIC, dozens of flight controllers are on console around the clock, 365 days a year as they manage the connection between scientists on the ground and the research in space, ensuring adequate resources are available. Payload communicators, or PAYCOMS are relaying information from investigators and flight controllers to crew. MSFC oversaw development of most U.S. modules and the station’s Environmental Control Life Support System. At last, Telescience Support Centers (TSCs) around the country are equipped to conduct science operations on board the station. These TSCs are located at Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., the Ames Research Center (ARC) in Moffett Field, Calif. and the Glenn Research Center (GRC) in Cleveland, with the Johnson Space Center in Houston too. By September 2011 NASA named the Center for the Advancement of Science in Space (CASIS) to manage the portion of the International Space Station that operates as a U.S. national laboratory. CASIS will be located in the Space Life Sciences Laboratory at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The Network Integration Center at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, leads all coordination for space-to-ground communications support for the ISS through the Space Network as Goddard also contributes hardware that make it possible for the station to support numerous science experiments and teams extended the concept of platforms aboard the Space Shuttle into the 'Express Logistics Carriers (ELCs),' platforms attached outside the station and providing for experiments. In addition to everyday data transfers, the Space Network provides communications for missions transporting cargo to and from the station, or currently for three different spacecraft, the Japanese HTV, the SpaceX Dragon and the Orbital ATK Cygnus
• the Russian part of the ISS operations, with Roscosmos, the Russian Federal Space Agency the principal contributor, are as follows. The Moscow Mission Control Center (TsUP) is the primary Russian facility for the control of Russian human spaceflight activities and operates the station’s Russian segment and located in Korolev, outside of Moscow, at the Central Institute of Machine building (TsNIIMASH) of Roscosmos. Upgraded control rooms are located in the facility that had oppened by 1973 in Kaliningrad, now Korolev, outside of Moscow. The Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center (GCTC), at Zvezdny Gorodok (Star City), near Moscow, provides full-size trainers and simulators of all Russian station modules, a water pool used for spacewalk training, centrifuges to simulate G-forces during liftoff, and a planetarium used for celestial navigation. The Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan is the chief launch center for both piloted and unpiloted space vehicles bound to the ISS. It supports the Soyuz and Proton launch vehicles and plays an essential role in the deployment and operation of the Station
• the Canadian Space Agency (CSA), for Canada, has the Mobile Servicing System (MSS ) and the Operations Complex (MOC) located in Saint Hubert, Quebec with the MSS Operations Complex composed of the Space Operations Support Center (SOSC), the MSS Operations and Training System (MOTS), the Virtual Operations Training Environment (VOTE) and the Canadian MSS Training Facility (CMTF) providing resources, equipment and expertise for the engineering and monitoring of the MSS and crew training on Canadian systems. The Space Station Remote Manipulator System (SSRMS ) was designed and built for the CSA by MDA of Brampton, Ontario. The Payload Telescience Operations Centre (PTOC) in Saint Hubert supports real time operations for Canadian Payloads onboard the ISS
• the European Space Agency (ESA), for Europe has its European Space Research and Technology Center (ESTEC) in Noordwijk, the Netherlands, being the largest ESA establishment, a test center and hub for European space activities. It has responsibility for the technical preparation and management of ESA space projects and provides technical support to ESA’s ongoing satellite, space exploration, and human space activities. Two ground control centers are controlling and operating the European contribution to the station program, the Columbus Control Center (COL-CC) -for the ESA ISS Columbus module and experiments, installed by 2008 and dedicated to long-term research in weightlessness- and the Automated Transfer Vehicle Control Center (ATV-CC) for ESA cargo craft during the active and docked mission phases of those. The COl-CC is located at the German Aerospace Center (DLR), in Oberpfaffenhofen, near Munich, Germany. The ATV-CC is located in Toulouse, France, on the premises of the French space agency, Centre national d’Etudes Spatiales (CNES). Europe’s Spaceport is situated at the Guiana Space Center (GSC) in the northeast of South America in French Guiana as it had been initially created by CNES and now jointly funded and used by both the French space agency and ESA as the launch site for the Ariane 5 vehicle. ESA's European Astronaut Center (EAC), situated in Cologne, Germany was established in 1990 and is the home base of the 13 European astronauts members of the European astronaut corps. User Support and Operation Centers (USOCs) are based in national centers distributed throughout Europe and responsible for the use and implementation of European payloads aboard the ISS. A Module Development center is located in Torino, Italy
• Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and its field centers, is the space agency in charge of the ISS as far as Japan is concerned. The Tsukuba Space Center (TKSU) and Tanegashima launch Facility (TNSC) are JAXA’s primary ISS facilities. The TKSU is located in Tsukuba Science City and began by 1972 as it is a consolidated operations facility with world-class equipment, testing facilities, and crew training capabilities. The TKSC developed and tested the Japanese Experiment Module (JEM) or 'Kibo,' which translates in English as 'Hope.' The Kibo Control Center plays an important role in control and tracking of the Japanese laboratory. The TNSC is the largest rocket launch complex in Japan and is located in the south of Kagoshima Prefecture, along the southeast coast of Tanegashima as the Yoshinobu launch complex serves for H-IIA and H-IIB launch vehicles. There are also related developmental facilities for test firings of liquid- and solid-fuel rocket engines

click to a Map of ISS Facilities Worldwide. site 'Amateur Astronomy'

Teams of controllers and scientists on the ground continuously plan, monitor and remotely operate experiments from control centers around the globe as controllers staff payload operations centers around the world, effectively provide for researchers and the station crew around the clock, seven days a week. State-of-the-art computers and communications equipment deliver up-to-the-minute reports about experiment facilities and investigations between science outposts across the United States and around the world. The payload operations team also synchronizes the payload time lines among international partners, ensuring the best use of resources and crew time

As far as the ISS control centers are concerned, they part like. NASA's Payload Operations and Integration Center (POIC), Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. and the Mission Control Center (MCC) in Houston. For Russia, the Roscosmos Flight Control Center (TsUP), Korolev, Russia, Roscosmos Transport Vehicle Control Room, Korolev, Russia. Japan is featuring the Experiment Module Mission Control (JEMMC), Tsukuba-shi, Ibaraki as the ESA is Columbus Control Center (Col-CC), Oberpfaffenhofen, Germany, the ATV Control Center, Toulouse, France and the ESA European User Support

ISS Operations Centers are the followings. CADMOS, Toulouse, France. MARS, Naples, Italy. MUSC, Cologne, Germany. B-USOC, Brussels, Belgium. E-USOC, Trondheim, Norway. DAMEC, Odense, Denmark. BIOTESC, Zurich, Switzerland. ERASMUS, Noordwijk, The Netherlands. The CSA-Payloads Operations Telesciences Center, St. Hubert, Quebec, Canada, the Canadian Space Agency Mission Control Center (CSA-MCC), Longueuil, Quebec. NASA’s Payload Operations Center serves as a hub for coordinating much of the work related to delivery of research facilities and experiments to the ISS as they are rotated in and out periodically when space shuttles or other vehicles make deliveries and return completed experiments and samples to Earth. NAS payload operations director leads the POIC’s main flight control team, known as the 'cadre,' and approves all science plans in coordination with Mission Control in Houston, the international partner control centers and the station crew. The POIC may be considered the science command post for the ISS, linking Earth-bound researchers with their experiments in orbit through a team of ground-based flight controllers, or programming shared time access to those. It began working by March 2001 building upon its expertise with the Spacelab cargos aboard the Space Shuttle in the 1990s

A Multilateral Coordination Board (MCB) for the International Space Station partner agencies also discuss question of standardization at the ISS and to ensure coordination of station operations and activities among the partners

During a spacewalk two astronauts inside the ISS serve like a intravehicular officer and spacewalk capcom from the ISS flight control room. Those also keep in communications with the Mission Control Center in Houston. The standard procedure to prepare to a spacewalk is to stay overnight stay in the Quest airlock as a alternate way is to breath oxygen for a hour, put on spacesuits and have 'light exercise' for 50 minutes, standing and doing slow intermittent movements. Astronauts may be debriefed after a spacewalk during a conference with spacewalk specialists on Earth

for more, see at the ISS pages at NASA