28°27′47″N80°34′57″W / 28.463082°N 80.582562°W /28.463082; -80.582562
TheMercury Control Center (also known asBuilding 1385 or simplyMCC) provided control and coordination of all activities associated with the NASA'sProject Mercury flight operation as well as the first threeProject Gemini flights (the first two had no crew). It was located on theCape Canaveral Space Force Station, east of Samuel C. Phillips Parkway.
The facility was expanded in 1963 to supportProject Gemini by contractorPan American World Airways to provide more meeting space along with space for data analysis, and a large space for a new Gemini spacecraft trainer.[1]
The more complex requirements of later Gemini andApollo flights forced control operations to move toa larger facility located inHouston, Texas, but the MCC continued to be used for training and meeting space. On June 1, 1967, the Center became a historic stop for public tours, and continued this function through the mid-1990s.
The MCC was organized into three rows and was smaller and simpler than subsequent control centers. It needed only to support a mission of no more than 36 hours with a spacecraft less complex than those used on future missions. Positions included those for monitoring the spacecraft and astronauts during flight as well as positions for supporting the launch and recovery of the capsule.
The MCC also featured a large backlit status map for display of the capsule position. Unlike later mission control centers which featured computer generated graphics, this Mercury-era display operated with a physical two-dimensional representation of the capsule suspended and lit in front of the map.
More modern mission control centers were split between launch control, which is located at the launch site such as Cape Canaveral, and mission control which is located at theLyndon B. Johnson Space Center for the Apollo and Space Shuttle programs or at theJet Propulsion Laboratory for unmanned missions.[2]
Though the MCC provided command and control, it was not the only facility involved in supporting Mercury or Gemini flights. The Computing and Communications Center was located at theGoddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland and provided computing power for missions.
To minimize the time that the spacecraft was out of communications range with the ground, additional ground stations were established at US military facilities, tracking ships, and in cooperation with the governments of Spain, United Kingdom, Nigeria and Australia:[3]
The building was erected between 1956 and 1958 and was used throughout Project Mercury (1961–1963) and forProject Gemini throughGemini 3 (1964–1965).
Though the building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on April 16, 1984, as acontributing property toCape Canaveral Air Force Station, asbestos removal, other repairs and restoring the center to its original state would have cost $6 million. The decision was made to preserve the consoles and other equipment and destroy the building.[4][5]
In 1999, consoles, displays and other equipment were moved to theKennedy Space Center Visitor Complex to a recreation of the MCC inside the Kurt Debus Center. Consoles and displays were reassembled and many are powered on.[6][2]
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