Volume 9, Number 1 • January/February 2001

CCT Continues Successful Commercial Growth

Command and Control Technologies Corporation (CCT) is automating commercial, multi-vehicle spaceport launch control systems in four states, while it continues to support NASA.

The company licensed the Control Monitor Unit (CMU) software technology from NASA in 1997 and is now developing three products. One is its signature product, the Command and Control Toolkit™ (CCTK). The T-Zero™ launch control software and the Spaceport RangeNet™ software augment the capabilities of the CCTK.

CCT Vice President Kevin Brown said his company now counts spaceport agencies in Florida, Alaska, Virginia and Washington among its customers. The Titusville, Florida company, a graduate of the Florida/NASA Business Incubator, has responded to proposal requests from 4 other state spaceport agencies, and is in discussions with 10 other states.

A major milestone occurred in December 2000 when the Spaceport Florida Authority used CCT’s technology to successfully launch a suborbital Lite-Star rocket. The launch was designed to validate new hardware and procedures at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station’s Launch Complex 20, a newly reactivated launch facility that is now available through the Spaceport Florida Authority to support a variety of small orbital and suborbital launch vehicles and "spaceport technology" programs.

Another major milestone occurred when CCT announced successful completion of acceptance testing and final delivery of spaceport operations software and computer systems at the Kodiak Launch Complex (KLC) in Alaska. KLC is the nation’s first commercial spaceport not colocated with a federal facility. Acceptance testing was completed December 17, 1999 by the CCT field team on-site at KLC.

CCT was started in 1997 as a self-initiated spinoff of a three-person McDonnell Douglas Space Systems (now The Boeing Company) management team. The team and their staff had spent more than 10 years developing a high performance software technology on contract to NASA; one of their first acts upon starting CCT was to execute a Space Act agreement granting them rights to improve and sell the software to programs outside of NASA.

Today, CCT employs 20 personnel and has realized revenue growth of 350 percent from 1997 to 1999. The company spent its first three years as a tenant in the Florida/NASA Business Incubation Center, where it had access to a variety of business and technology resources. In April 2000, CCT moved its headquarters from the 900- square-feet of space in the incubator to a 4,400-square-foot office in Titusville, Florida, just outside the main gate of Kennedy Space Center (KSC).

Brown said that CCT was recognized as the NASA-KSC Small Business Subcontractor of the Year for 1998 and received an economic development award from a local economic development agency. Most recently, CCT was named one of the 100 fastest growing companies in Florida by the fifth annual Florida 100.

The Spaceport Florida Authority recently entered into an agreement with CCT to provide a turnkey, state-of-the-art launch control system for Launch Complex 20 on the Cape Canaveral Spaceport. The new system will provide the spaceport with four launch controller stations, a state-of-the-art launch event sequencer, simulation software for testing and operator training, data archival and retrieval, vehicle commanding and live on-screen video. The system will be based on CCT’s Command and Control Toolkit™ package augmented with the newly released T-Zero™ launch control software. The Spaceport Authority is considering an expansion of the system to include CCT’s commercial range operations software. The Spaceport RangeNet™ software adds the capability to generate range maps, projected trajectories and range safety displays. During flight, the software obtains vehicle position information and plots present position and instantaneous impact points for the entire mission.

NASA originally developed the CMU to provide a comprehensive array of capabilities for use in controlling and monitoring complex systems of equipment under development for the International Space Station (ISS). CCT has continued to support NASA in this effort and is currently involved with several new projects, including a Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) project with NASA Ames Research Center. This project will concentrate on developing methods for managing the flight paths of reusable launch vehicles through commercial airspace. The flight management methods will encompass all phases of mission planning for reusable launch vehicle operations, including air traffic control, near-Earth and orbital airspace management, and abort site selection.

In September 2000, the NASA launch facility in Wallops Island, Virginia, ordered several CCT software products to determine if the maturity of the software is suitable for the high launch rates supported at their site. In addition, NASA awarded a $600,000 research contract to CCT to determine how to integrate flights of future reusable rockets (those that launch and then land similar to the Space Shuttle) into the nation’s air traffic control system. In November, CCT joined as a subcontractor to The Boeing Company to help NASA with research at KSC. This study will address the feasibility of producing a portable payload test and verification system (PTVS) for the Space Shuttle and ISS. CCT is also involved in two other projects at KSC. One is providing consulting services, product maintenance and technical support for advanced life sciences technology and software. The other involves software tool development for testing ISS simulators. f

For more information, contact Tom Gould at NASA Kennedy Space Center (321/867-6238) thomas.gould-1@ksc.nasa.gov Please mention you read about it in Innovation.