Evans has a storied history working with space exploration companies in both private and government sectors. These include a variety of NASA-commissioned control rooms from JPL to JWST and even the main firing room at the Kennedy Space Center. Although delayed, we are excited about the upcoming Artemis mission and can't wait to see humans back on the moon.
We have included some of our most high-profile control rooms and partnerships in this post. Click the list below to jump to the section you are most interested in. Space Geeks unite!
Photo from NASA images album (slight crop) - click photo for original album source.
Evans has had a long-standing 28+ year relationship with NASA. Some of the most high-profile control rooms we have completed include the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, NASA Flight Control Rooms, and the Main Firing Room at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Our consoles are used by the teams at NASA during launch days and throughout the year for a variety of space missions. We are proud to do our small part in the Artemis mission to put humans back on the moon for the first time since 1972.
Evans is a proud supplier of consoles for NASA and was presented with a supplier award back in 2006. We have done lots of work equipping NASA with consoles at their various locations across the USA. We look forward to continuing this relationship well into the future for many space-related missions still to come. You can see the Discovery rocket featured in the award which highlights the era of exploration and the period that we have been working with NASA for (28 years and counting).
"For your commitment, support and dedication to flight safety and mission success" -May 3, 2006.
Space Flight Awareness Supplier Award presented to Evans Consoles, Inc. "for your commitment, support and dedication to flight safety and mission success" May 3, 2006.
The supplier award shows our commitment to NASA and the space exploration industry. It also displays the quality of our work and our expert ability to design and equip consoles for mission-critical environments. This includes local, state and federal government, process control, public safety, utilities, air traffic control / airports, and security operations centers. Find out about all the industries we work with.
So why did we receive the NASA Supplier Award? Read on to find out more about how we have supported the National Aeronautics and Space Administration for the past 28 years.
The main control room is used for mission-critical launch operations with another room available to be used as a backup. Evans has supplied consoles for the Main Firing Room in the past. We are happy to support NASA over the years. Let's launch those rockets!
The NASA Mission Control Center (MCC) includes several different Flight Control Rooms (FCR). Each of the rooms are used by different teams for varying purposes and flight missions. FCR1 was previously used for Apollo, Skylab and the Apollo-Soyuz mission. The systems were re-used for the Space Shuttle Program and then upgraded to be used as mission control for the International Space Station (ISS). FCR1 is now known as MCC-21 or "Mission Control 21st Century". If you look closely at the picture below you can see the Evans logo on the side of the console.
The scope for this project was to build custom consoles for three FCR rooms using the same design for each one. FCR1 is the largest room and the one you will see most often on TV and the web (now known as MCC-21).
Learn more about how NASA missions are controlled and the duties of each console position including CAPCOM, EECOM, Flight Director, and Ground Control positions. We are proud to say that these NASA console positions are operated on Evans built consoles.
Artemis 1 will soon be launched and on the way to the Moon with lots of help from JPL. They were responsible for engineering and integrating the Orion System (the top part of the SLS rocket that houses the astronauts). They also validated the Orion thermal protection system and parachutes to help the capsule land safely back on earth. Their primary function is the construction and operation of planetary spacecraft and operating the NASA Deep Space Network. They have played a pivotal role in the Artemis missions and we are proud to say their sleek consoles are Evans built. We posted about JPL back in March 2021 when the Perseverance Rover successfully landed on Mars.
Photo from JPL/NASA images album (slight crop) - click photo for original source.
The highly anticipated Artemis 1 launch has been delayed a few times but is now expected to depart in November of 2022. Regardless of when the rocket gets of the ground we are excited to watch it happen! This mission marks the start of returning humans to the moon. Once launched, the uncrewed moon-orbiting mission will take 4-days to enter lunar orbit and return to Earth. This will allow NASA to test all systems and rocket stages before the Artemis 2 and 3 manned missions. Here at Evans, we are proud to play a part in the Artemis Launch and all NASA missions.
This launch will take advantage of NASA's new heavy lift Space Launch System (SLS) which will allow the Orion Spacecraft to get to the moon. The SLS rocket may also be used in the future for possible human missions to Mars.
Among the 18 astronauts training to go to the moon, 9 of them are women. This means that in the coming years we are very likely to see the first woman to walk on the moon. These women include: Anne McClain, Nicole Aunapu Mann, Kate Rubins, Kayla Barron, Christina Koch, Stephanie Wilson, Jessica Meir, Jasmin Moghbeli, and Jessica Watkins. No astronauts have been assigned to any specific Artemis mission as of yet.
Some great achievements from some of the best astronauts in the world! Let's hope this trend continues and we see the first woman to walk on the moon in the coming years. Many other women have been involved in operations at NASA since 1922 when it was still known as NACA.
Notably, Laurie Leshin is the first woman director of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. You can learn more about her story in this LinkedIn video post. Keep an eye out for the consoles featured in the video, I bet you can guess where they are from!
On December 25th, 2021, NASA launched the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) into space from French Guiana. The telescope was created in partnership with the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA). On January 8th, 2022, NASA unfolded the 2 wings of the primary mirror which completed the last major step in the deployment sequence. In a huge 4-hour event, the large, gold-plated mirror was unveiled as the final piece to the telescope. JWST completed its 29 day and 1.51-million-kilometer (940,000 mile) journey to the L2 Halo orbit early in 2022.
Calibration of the telescope took 6 months and it is now generating brand new images revealing galaxies and stars in higher resolution and in wavelengths the Hubble Space Telescope could not see. JWST will study some of the earliest stars and peer farther back into the universe than ever before. What a milestone for NASA and the JWST team! Here at Evans, we are proud to be a small part of a huge achievement.
Evans Consoles designs and equips mission-critical operations. Our work with NASA is no different, we take the time to work with our clients to design the best possible control room. Early renderings help us decide what we need to change and what aspects of the control room or consoles we need to tweak. Here is one of the renderings of the JWST consoles we created for NASA:
In 2016, Evans helped design and build part of the control room and all the consoles that now reside in the room. This equipment now communicates and controls the James Webb Space Telescope. We are incredibly happy to see the JWST team continue to succeed in every step of this historic achievement at their control room in Baltimore, Maryland. Our Strategy line of consoles was built for this room configuration. Our consoles still look great to this day, over 6 years later!
The control room was designed for future expansion in mind, who knows what science JWST will uncover! All positions in the control room were built specifically for the JWST team. The panels also look great and are functionally designed. Check out some of the images from this project.
We consider the needs of our clients for every project we take on. For NASA, it was clear there were a considerable number of operators and engineers that needed to work together synchronously and within general close proximity of each other. We were happy to take on the design of the operator stations and placement of operators, working together with NASA.
We are very excited to see the discoveries the JWST team and NASA will be making over the next few years. The telescope is now fully operational and has already started sending images back to Earth. It was well worth the wait! View the most recent images from the Webb Telescope.
Having our consoles in the background on launch day makes us feel proud to be involved with this project. We anticipate many more historic photos coming from JWST. Keep an eye out for pictures of the team at their consoles or the control room on the news. Seeing that will be sure to bring smiles to everyone here at Evans! For example, this capture from the NASA live stream on launch day, very cool. For more information about JWST visit the official NASA Website.
Lastly, we wanted to feature a small control room that is in the NASA training building called the IOS room. It features our Strategy SX console built with custom position numbers. Each console can accommodate between 1 and 8 positions each. The consoles also include unique end panels with the NASA logo and the Flight Operations emblem.
We created some awesome end panels for NASA and we can help you do the same. Add your company logo, emblem or a government insignia to either our Strategy SX or NEXTGen console solutions. Here is the NASA training room with the consoles installed and ready to be utilized.
We hope you enjoyed reading about our NASA projects and how we have helped many space missions including the James Webb Space Telescope, the ongoing multi-national collaborative project on the International Space Station, and upcoming missions to the moon!
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Along with NASA, Evans has also worked with other companies that are on the cutting edge of space exploration technology. Whether you are in the space industry or not we have solutions for you. For more information on how we can help you build a "space-grade" control room Contact Us at any time. We work with a wide-range of industries from Public Safety to Process Control and almost everything in between. No project is too small, we complete projects of all sizes! Even if your project is 1 or 2 positions, we want to hear about it and support your vision. Don't feel intimidated by our work with NASA, we have completed many different projects types with great success.
The Evans team can help you create aspects of the above projects or design new configurations that can be applied to your ideal control room. Read more about the Evans Process and our many hours of experience in the following detailed blog post:
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Thanks for reading and have a fantastic day.