NASA's 21st century multi-user Firing Room 4 in the Launch Control Center at Kennedy Space Center in Florida was used for the first time June 3. The facility last used to launch space shuttle Atlantis on the STS-135 mission in July 2011 was the site of a multi-center integrated mission simulation for the Resource Prospector (RP) payload team.

The Regolith and Environment Science and Oxygen and Lunar Volatiles Extraction (RESOLVE) is the primary science payload for RP, and is comprised of a miniature drilling and chemistry plant about the size of an extra-large suitcase that will be installed on a medium-sized lunar rover.

It is targeted to launch in 2020 on a mission to the polar region of the moon. RESOLVES' instruments will be used to map the distribution of volatiles and collect and analyze soil below the surface for volatile components such as water or hydrogen that could be used in human exploration efforts.

"We are the first customer to take advantage of this low cost, multi-use facility," said Josie Burnett, director of Kennedy's Exploration Research and Technology Programs. "Customizing our own control room isn't just cool, it enables us to enhance our exploration training."

The team is using the firing room for about six months to support RP simulated operations.

Steve Cox is an operations engineer in the Ground Systems Development and Operations (GSDO) Program. He oversaw the firing room modifications and provides support to the LCC and the end-to-end command and control development group.

During the shuttle era, the firing rooms were designed to support up to 200 people or more. The four smaller control rooms in Firing Room 4 are designed to support smaller missions that may only require 25 to 30 people for a test. As customers' needs grow and they get closer to launch, Cox said opening access to adjoining rooms will accommodate an increased crew size of 50 to 100.

"The four new control rooms are designed for customers who may use the facility for a couple of weeks, a month or all the way up to a year or more," Cox said. "For RESOLVE, we found out what the team's requirements were and then we set up the room to meet their specific needs."

For the Resource Prospector RESOLVE team, each of the stations has four monitors and a secure space network for communication with the other NASA centers.

For the long term, Cox said GSDO will use some of the existing control room equipment, such as networks, cabling, routers, monitors, tables, chairs and conference rooms that already are in place to support other customers' needs.

"There's a wide variety of possible use, and we have to meet customers' needs according to how they want to set up the control room or rooms," Cox said.

"What we really like about Firing Room 4 is that it has a real mission operations feel to it," said James Smith, lead systems engineer for the RESOLVE payload. "It's a very flight-like environment."

The mission simulation was led from Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California, which is home to the RP flight project office. Ames also is developing the Neutron Spectrometer Subsystem and the Near Infrared Volatile Spectrometer Subsystem, or NIRVSS instrumentation for RESOLVE.

Johnson Space Center in Houston, is providing the Oxygen and Volatile Extraction Node, or OVEN subsystem; and Kennedy, with support from the Jet Propulsion Lab in Pasadena, California, is developing the Lunar Advanced Volatile Analysis, or LAVA subsystem. Kennedy also leads the avionics and software subsystems for RESOLVE and provides project management and systems engineering for the payload.

"We're talking with these centers and the hardware they are providing for RESOLVE," Smith said. "We're using Firing Room 4 as a mission operations center for the payload."

Smith said the team will use the firing room for subsequent flight simulations, the flight mission and the entire RESOLVE payload. Using the flight-like environment for the Resource Prospector simulation is in line with NASA's "test as you fly" philosophy.

Even though the RP RESOLVE hardware will reside at Johnson, Smith said the team will control it from Firing Room 4 at Kennedy during a three-day, whole-mission simulation test in August, with mission commanding coming from Ames.

RESOLVE is the Resource Prospector payload, within the Advanced Exploration Systems Program in the Human Exploration Operations Mission Directorate.