Patrick Air Force Base may seem the same as always from the outside but, in one small communications facility inside its walls, Patrick’s role is changing to meet the requirements for the next round of manned space programs.
The 700-square-foot Human Spaceflight Support Operations Center (SOC) at Patrick, which is an extension of the Joint Space Operations Center at Vandenberg AFB, Calif., is considered the Department of Defense’s Human Space Flight Operations Center, a state-of-the-art communications hub used for its human spaceflight support missions.
Now renovated by a $485,000 year-long project, the Space Ops Center is fully operational for a blended mission serving as “a hub for world-wide communications pertaining to NASA astronaut rescue and recovery,’’ said Shawn Walleck, Chief of Public Affairs, 45th Space Wing.
No additional personnel will be required by the transition, however the changes to the Space ops center “allow for future growth in support of rescue and recovery operations now and well into the future,’’ he said.
The center hosts a worldwide command and control capability for Department of Defense rescue forces through a combination of radio frequencies, specialized Internet applications, texting, satellite, and secure and unsecure voice through the SOC’s 10 workstations, 20 DOD circuits and 20 NASA specific circuits.
The detachment has long directed the nominal recovery of spacecraft and the global contingency rescue for our nation’s current and future astronaut crew force.
But there are now more than just DOD missions on the horizon for the Space Ops Center, he said.
Walleck pointed out that the center now “covers all NASA and NASA-sponsored astronauts. For the Orion program, they currently provide recovery, rescue, and retrieval to NASA’s Orion Program. For the Commercial Crew Program, they provide rescue. For NASA’s Soyuz Program, they provide medical evacuation capabilities,’’ he said.
The configuration and staffing of the SOC is driven by operational requirements. Generally, there will be a mission coordinator, communications advisor and medical adviser at a minimum. All missions will be able to utilize the integrated video wall capabilities that allow the team to view concurrent mission feeds. This allows the SOC to provide mission execution command authority from a common operating picture, Walleck said.
The SOC is fully operational and will be essential to the command and control of DOD forces during the September Soyuz landing, he said.
On one side of the room, missions such as the Shuttle and Soyuz are represented to reflect the past. The other side of the room represents missions that will be executed in the next round of crewed space programs.
Chartered in 1959 by the Secretary of Defense as the DOD Mercury Support Office, the 45th Operations Group, Detachment 3 at Patrick AFB was later renamed DOD Manned Space Flight Support Office (DDMS).
Since its inception, this unit has been the principle facilitator for all DOD nominal and contingency support to projects including Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo; the Apollo/Soyuz Test Project; the Space Shuttle Program; the International Space Station (ISS)/Soyuz Program; the Orion Program; and the Commercial Crew Program.