ISS Payload Operations Center

Building 4663 currently houses the International Space Station Payload Operations Center, or POC. while giving the appearance of a modern building (and undergoing some sort of construction or renovation project when I visited in September 2013), Building 4663 has a long history dating back to the earliest space and missile projects.

It was originally erected as the computation laboratory for the Army Ballistic Missile Agency (ABMA) in 1956, and has been expanded many times since. The Army added on to the building in 1958, and NASA undertook expansion shortly after it took possession of the building in 1961, with additional expansion projects in 1962 and 1963.

The facility retained its computation laboratory function for some time. In late 1960, immediately after NASA’s occupancy of Building 4663, the computation laboratory featured two IBM 7090 computers, large scientific mainframes which were state-of-the-art for military high-speed applications such as nuclear weapons research and missile detection/tracking (IBM 7090s at other facilities were used in the Ballistic Missile Early Warning System to track possible Soviet launching of intercontinental ballistic missiles. By April 1963, NASA added a Burroughs B-5000 to the computers in Building 4663. Data acquisition equipment fed these computers information from tracking and telemetry equipment used in static and live missile and spacelaunch firings in a data reduction process.

By 1968 the Huntsville Operations Support Center (HOSC) operated inside the building, linking MSFC engineers directly to the Kennedy Space Center during Apollo missions to monitor real-time data and advise as situations arose. Support for manned spaceflight continued and further modifications allowed the facility to host the Spacelab Mission Operations Control Facility in 1990, replacing the Payload Operations Control Center at Houston's Johnson Space Center. This evolved into the current International Space Station Payload Operations Center. The HOSC also serves as a Backup Control Center for the ISS, assuming JSC's Mission Control Center responsibilities when JSC is unable to do so (e.g., when hurricanes threaten the Houston area).

Marshall Space Flight Center has a number of resources regarding the POC, and has also issued a documentary on the HOSC's history.

Google Maps link.