Launch Vehicle Control Center Architectures
Launch vehicles within the international community vary greatly in their configuration and processing. Each launch site has a unique processing flow based on the specific launch vehicle configuration. Launch and flight operations are managed through a set of control centers associated with each launch site. Each launch site has a control center for launch operations; however flight operations support varies from being co-located with the launch site to being shared with the space vehicle control center. There is also a nuance of some having an engineering support center which may be co-located with either the launch or flight control center, or in a separate geographical location altogether. A survey of control center architectures is presented for various launch vehicles including the NASA Space Launch System (SLS), United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V and Delta IV, and the European Space Agency (ESA) Ariane 5. Each of these control center architectures shares some similarities in basic structure while differences in functional distribution also exist. The driving functions which lead to these factors are considered and a model of control center architectures is proposed which supports these commonalities and variations.