Payload Ops

Payload Ops

The Payload Operations Integration Center (POIC) at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, is the heartbeat for space station research operations. As NASA’s primary space station science command post, the payload operations team coordinates all U.S. scientific and commercial experiments on the station, synchronizes payload activities of international partners, and directs communications between researchers around the world and their on-board experiments. POIC provides a one-stop-shop infrastructure supporting customers’ mission needs with everything from command and telemetry to voice, video, and storage.

The payload operations team integrates research timelines and requirements, schedules ground and crew training, plans the orbital research schedule, and ensures missions and experiments are safely executed. During each six-month space station research expedition, controllers manage payload resources on station, handle science communications with the crew, and oversee all transmissions to and from the orbiting research center. They process hundreds of payload commands in support of investigations each day, and continuously monitor the health and status of scientific instruments deployed on the space station.

POIC has a proven history of conducting end-to-end mission operations for science payloads in low-Earth orbit and is capitalizing on this experience to be able to support missions in cislunar space, on the lunar surface and beyond.

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