Christopher C. Kraft Jr. Mission Control Center

NASA's Christopher C. Kraft, Jr. Mission Control Center (MCC-H, initially called Integrated Mission Control Center, or IMCC), also known by its radio callsign, Houston, is the facility at the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas that manages flight control for America's human space program, currently involving astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS). The center is named after Christopher C. Kraft, Jr., a retired NASA engineer and manager who was instrumental in establishing the agency's Mission Control operation, and was the first Flight Director. Prime contractor for systems integration at Houston was Philco Corp., selected by NASA in January 1963. The MCC currently houses one operational control room, from which flight controllers command, monitor, and plan operations for the ISS. This room has many computer and data-processing resources to monitor, command and communicate with the station. The ISS control room operates continuously. In the event that the MCC-H is unavailable, from a hurricane or other unforeseen event, NASA has a Backup Control Center (BCC) located at the Marshall Space Flight Center and is in the Huntsville Operations Support Center (HOSC) at Marshall Space Flight Center for ISS operations. (Unmanned US civilian satellites are controlled from the Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland, while California's Jet Propulsion Laboratory manages unmanned US space probes.)