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54-580: The Space Flight Operations Facility ( SFOF ) is a building containing a control room and related computing and communications equipment areas at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena , California . NASA's Deep Space Network is operated from this facility. The SFOF has monitored and controlled all interplanetary and deep space exploration for NASA and other international space agencies since 1964. The facility also acted as

108-553: A road case approved by the Air Transport Association of America (ATA), sometimes also referred to as a flight case . Road cases typically have plywood sides laminated with polyvinyl chloride (PVC), extruded aluminum edges, steel corners, handles, and latches. Larger cases typically have wheels for easy transport. Road case racks come in different heights based on the 1U standard and different depths. Non-isolated cases simply mount 19-inch mounting posts inside

162-498: A 1.5U server or devices that are just 22.5 or 15 cm in width, allowing for 2 or 3 such devices to be installed side by side, but these are much less common. The height of a rack can vary from a few inches, such as in a broadcast console, to a floor-mounted rack whose interior is 45 rack units (200.2 centimetres or 78.82 inches) high. 42U is a common configuration. Many wall-mounted enclosures for industrial equipment use 19-inch racks. Some telecommunications and networking equipment

216-485: A 19-inch rack. With the prevalence of 23-inch racks in the Telecoms industry, the same practice is also common, but with equipment having 19-inch and 23-inch brackets available, enabling them to be mounted in existing racks. A key structural weakness of front-mounted support is the bending stress placed on the mounting brackets of the equipment, and the rack itself. As a result, 4-post racks have become common, featuring

270-535: A backup communications facility for Apollo missions. It was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1985 and is on the National Register of Historic Places . Public tours are available with advance planning. In the early years, the operations control center of the Deep Space Network did not have a permanent facility. It was a makeshift setup with numerous desks and phones installed in

324-412: A cubic meter. Newer server rack cabinets come with adjustable mounting rails allowing the user to place the rails at a shorter depth if needed. There are a multitude of specialty server racks including soundproof server racks, air-conditioned server racks, NEMA-rated, seismic-rated, open frame, narrow, and even miniature 19-inch racks for smaller applications. Cabinets are generally sized to be no wider than

378-399: A few documentaries have been filmed with scenes in real-life control room settings. Rack mount A 19-inch rack is a standardized frame or enclosure for mounting multiple electronic equipment modules. Each module has a front panel that is 19 inches (482.6 mm) wide. The 19 inch dimension includes the edges or ears that protrude from each side of the equipment, allowing

432-526: A fire can be completely extinguished. Openings in such spaces must therefore be kept to a minimum to prevent the escape of the suppression gas. A mobile control room is designated as particularly in high risk facilities, such as a nuclear power station or a petrochemical facility. It can provided a guaranteed life support for the anticipated safety control. The design of a control room incorporates ergonomic and aesthetic features including optimum traffic flow, acoustics, illumination, and health and safety of

486-978: A gap of 17.75 inches (450.85 mm), giving an overall rack width of 19 inches (482.60 mm). The posts have holes in them at regular intervals, with both posts matching, so that each hole is part of a horizontal pair with a center-to-center distance of 18.312 inches (465.12 mm). The holes in the posts are arranged vertically in repeating sets of three, with center-to-center separations of 0.5 inches (12.70 mm), 0.625 inches (15.88 mm), 0.625 inches (15.88 mm). The hole pattern thus repeats every 1.75 inches (44.45 mm). Holes so arranged can either be tapped (usually 10-32 UNF thread, or, less often, 6mm metric ) or have square holes for cage nuts . Racks are vertically divided into regions, 44.45 millimetres (1.75 in) in height. Each region has three complete hole pairs on each side. The holes are centered at 6.35 millimetres (0.25 in), 22.25 millimetres (0.88 in), and 38.15 millimetres (1.50 in) from

540-437: A large physical facility or physically dispersed service can be monitored and controlled. Central control rooms came into general use in factories during the 1920s. Control rooms for vital facilities are typically tightly secured and inaccessible to the general public. Multiple electronic displays and control panels are usually present, and there may also be a large wall-sized display area visible from all locations within

594-615: A large room near the computers used to calculate orbits. In July 1961, NASA started the construction of the permanent facility, Space Flight Operations Facility (SFOF). The facility was completed in October 1963 dedicated on May 14, 1964. In the initial setup of the SFOF, there were 31 consoles, 100 closed-circuit television cameras, and more than 200 television displays to support Ranger 6 to Ranger 9 and Mariner 4 . As of 2012, there were 22 spacecraft monitored from this facility. Depending on

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648-474: A mirrored pair of rear mounting posts. Since the spacing between the front and rear mounting posts may differ between rack vendors and/or the configuration of the rack (some racks may incorporate front and rear rails that may be moved forwards and backward, e.g. APC SX-range racks), it is common for equipment that features 4-post mounting brackets to have an adjustable rear bracket. Servers and deep pieces of equipment are often mounted using rails that are bolted to

702-494: A rotary-molded polyethylene outer shell are a lower-cost alternative to the more durable ATA-approved case. These cases are marketed to musicians and entertainers for equipment not subject to frequent transportation and rough handling. The polyethylene shell is not fiberglass reinforced and is not rigid. The shape of small cases is maintained by the rack rails and the cover seal extrusions alone. Larger cases are further reinforced with additional plywood or sheet metal. The outer shell

756-546: A wider folded strip arranged around the corner of the rack. The posts are usually made of steel of around 2 mm thickness (the official standard recommends a minimum of 1.9 mm), or of slightly thicker aluminum . Racks, especially two-post racks, are often secured to the floor or adjacent building structure so as not to fall over. This is usually required by local building codes in seismic zones . According to Telcordia Technologies Generic Requirements document GR-63-CORE, during an earthquake, telecommunications equipment

810-435: Is h = 1.75 n − 0.031 for calculating in inches, and h = 44.45 n − 0.794 for calculating in millimeters. This gap allows a bit of room above and below an installed piece of equipment so it may be removed without binding on the adjacent equipment. Originally, the mounting holes were tapped with a particular screw thread. When rack rails are too thin to tap, rivet nuts or other threaded inserts can be used, and when

864-401: Is industrial power, control, and automation hardware . Typically, a piece of equipment being installed has a front panel height 1 ⁄ 32 inch (0.031 in; 0.79 mm) less than the allotted number of Us. Thus, a 1U rackmount computer is not 1.750 inches (44.5 mm) tall but is 1.719 inches (43.7 mm) tall. If n is number of rack units, the ideal formula for panel height

918-413: Is a large number of computers in a single rack, it is impractical for each one to have its own separate keyboard, mouse, and monitor. Instead, a KVM switch or LOM software is used to share a single keyboard/video/mouse set amongst many different computers. Since the mounting hole arrangement is vertically symmetric, it is possible to mount rack-mountable equipment upside-down. However, not all equipment

972-509: Is a tendency for 4-post racks to be 600 mm (23.62 in) or 800 mm (31.50 in) wide, and for them to be 600 mm (23.62 in), 800 mm (31.50 in) or 1,010 mm (39.76 in) deep. This of course varies by manufacturer, the design of the rack and its purpose, but through common constraining factors (such as raised-floor tile dimensions), these dimensions have become quite common. The extra width and depth enables cabling to be routed with ease (also helping to maintain

1026-411: Is frequently embossed in a self-mating pattern to combat the tendency for stacked cases to deform slightly creating a slope that encourages the upper case to slide off. The cases typically use extruded aluminum bands at the ends of the body with tongue-and-groove mating to like bands for the covers. End covers are typically secured with either a simple draw latch or a rotary cam butterfly latch, named for

1080-435: Is mounted via rails (or slides). A pair of rails is mounted directly onto the rack, and the equipment then slides into the rack along the rails, which support it. When in place, the equipment may also then be bolted to the rack. The rails may also be able to fully support the equipment in a position where it has been slid clear of the rack; this is useful for inspection or maintenance of equipment which will then be slid back into

1134-641: Is still used in legacy ILEC / CLEC facilities. Nineteen-inch racks in two-post or four-post form hold most equipment in enterprise data centers , ISP facilities, and professionally designed corporate server rooms , although hyperscale computing typically use wider racks. They allow for dense hardware configurations without occupying excessive floor space or requiring shelving. Nineteen-inch racks are also often used to house professional audio and video equipment, including amplifiers , effects units , interfaces, headphone amplifiers, and even small-scale audio mixers. A third common use for rack-mounted equipment

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1188-409: Is subjected to motions that can over-stress equipment framework, circuit boards, and connectors. The amount of motion and resulting stress depends on the structural characteristics of the building and framework in which the equipment is contained and the severity of the earthquake. Seismic racks rated according to GR-63 , NEBS Requirements: Physical Protection, are available, with Zone 4 representing

1242-400: Is suitable for this type of mounting. For instance, most optical disc players will not work upside-down because the driving motor mechanism does not grip the disc. 19-inch server racks can vary in quality. A standard 19-inch server rack cabinet is typically 42u in height, 600 millimetres (24 in) wide, and 36 inches (914.40 mm) deep. This comprises a volume of 974 L, or just under

1296-399: Is useful to ensure the use of "T-rated" firestops that are massive and thick enough to resist heat transmission to the inside of the control room. It is also common to place control rooms under positive pressure ventilation to prevent smoke or toxic gases from entering. If used, gaseous fire suppressants must occupy the space that is to be protected for a minimum period of time to be sure

1350-664: The case. To protect equipment from shock and vibration road rack cases use an inner and outer case. These cases can be isolated by thick layers of foam or may use spring-loaded shock mounting. Touring musicians, theatrical productions and sound and light companies use road case racks. In 1965, a durable fiber-reinforced plastic 19-inch rackmount case was patented by ECS Composites and became widely used in military and commercial applications for electronic deployment and operation. Rackmount cases are also constructed of thermo-stamped composite, carbon fiber , and DuPont 's Kevlar for military and commercial uses. Portable rack cases using

1404-419: The control equipment is intended to control other items in the surrounding facility, these often fire-resistance rated service rooms require many penetrations for cables. Due to routine equipment updates, these penetrations are subject to frequent changes, requiring maintenance programs to include vigilant firestop management for code compliance. Due to the sensitive equipment in control room cabinets, it

1458-515: The dimensions of these early racks were standardized. The 19-inch rack format with rack-units of 1.75 inches (44.45 mm) was established as a standard by AT&T around 1922 in order to reduce the space required for repeater and termination equipment in a telephone company central office . The earliest repeaters from 1914 were installed in ad hoc fashion on shelves, in wooden boxes and cabinets. Once serial production started, they were built into custom-made racks, one per repeater. But in light of

1512-402: The electronic modules is also standardized as multiples of 1.75 inches (44.45 mm) or one rack unit or U (less commonly RU). The industry-standard rack cabinet is 42U tall; however, many data centers have racks taller than this. The term relay rack appeared first in the world of telephony . By 1911, the term was also being used in railroad signaling . There is little evidence that

1566-602: The fans. However, some rack equipment has been designed to make fan replacement easy, using quick-change fan trays that can be accessed without removing the cabling or the device from the rack, and in some cases without turning off the device so that operation is uninterrupted during replacement. The formal standards for a 19-inch (482.6 mm) rack are available from the following: A rack's mounting fixture consists of two parallel metal strips (also referred to as posts or panel mounts ) standing vertically. The posts are each 0.625 inches (15.88 mm) wide, and are separated by

1620-594: The front and exhaust on the rear. This prevents circular airflows where hot exhaust air is recirculated through an adjacent device and causes overheating. Although open-frame racks are the least expensive, they also expose air-cooled equipment to dust, lint, and other environmental contamination. An enclosed sealed cabinet with forced air fans permits air filtration to protect equipment from dust. Large server rooms will often group rack cabinets together so that racks on both sides of an aisle are either front-facing or rear-facing, which simplifies cooling by supplying cool air to

1674-423: The front and rear posts (as above, it is common for such rails to have an adjustable depth), allowing the equipment to be supported by four posts, while also enabling it to be easily installed and removed. Although there is no standard for the depth of equipment, nor specifying the outer width and depth of the rack enclosure itself (incorporating the structure, doors and panels that contain the mounting rails), there

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1728-413: The front of the racks and collecting hot air from the rear of the racks. These aisles may themselves be enclosed into a cold air containment tunnel so that cooling air does not travel to other parts of the building where it is not needed or mixes with hot air, making it less efficient. Raised or false floor cooling in server rooms can serve a similar purpose; they permit cooling airflow to equipment through

1782-603: The middle of the room designating the facility "The Center of the Universe." A list of other Deep Space Network facilities: This article about a property in Los Angeles County, California on the National Register of Historic Places is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Control room A control room's purpose is production control , and serves as a central space where

1836-485: The minimum bend radius for fiber and copper cables) and deeper equipment to be utilized. A common feature in IT racks is mounting positions for zero-U accessories, such as power distribution units (PDUs) and vertical cable managers and ducts, that utilize the space between the rear rails and the side of the rack enclosure. The strength required of the mounting posts means they are invariably not merely flat strips but actually

1890-503: The module to be fastened to the rack frame with screws or bolts. Common uses include computer servers , telecommunications equipment and networking hardware , audiovisual production gear, professional audio equipment, and scientific equipment . Equipment designed to be placed in a rack is typically described as rack-mount , rack-mount instrument , a rack-mounted system , a rack-mount chassis , subrack , rack cabinet , rack-mountable , or occasionally simply shelf . The height of

1944-465: The most demanding environment. GR-3108 , Generic Requirements for Network Equipment in the Outside Plant (OSP), specifies the usable opening of seismic-compliant 19-inch racks. Heavy equipment or equipment that is commonly accessed for servicing, for which attaching or detaching at all four corners simultaneously would pose a problem, is often not mounted directly onto the rack but instead

1998-498: The operations of the spacecraft, they are scheduled to be online for 1 to 10 hours at a time. Notable is that the facility also processes the signal from Voyager 1 that is sent from about 11 billion miles from Earth. With data feeding into the Space Flight Operations Facility from every NASA spacecraft beyond low Earth orbit, including rovers , orbiters , and deep-space probes , there is a plaque in

2052-653: The particular class of equipment to be mounted is known in advance, some of the holes can be omitted from the mounting rails. Threaded mounting holes in racks where the equipment is frequently changed are problematic because the threads can be damaged or the mounting screws can break off; both problems render the mounting hole unusable. Tapping large numbers of holes that may never be used is expensive; nonetheless, tapped-hole racks are still in use, generally for hardware that rarely changes. Examples include telephone exchanges, network cabling panels, broadcast studios and some government and military applications. The tapped-hole rack

2106-523: The posts and allow the rack to be securely attached to the floor and/or roof for seismic safety. Equipment can be mounted either close to its center of gravity (to minimize load on its front panel), or via the equipment's front panel holes. The Relay Racks name comes from early two-post racks which housed telephone relay and switching equipment. Two-post racks are most often used for telecommunication installations. 19-inch equipment that needs to be moved often or protected from harsh treatment can be housed in

2160-618: The project is concluded. Control rooms are typically found in installations such as: Control rooms are usually equipped with elaborate fire suppression and security systems to safeguard their contents and occupants, and to ensure continued operation in emergencies. In hazardous environments, they may also be areas of refuge for personnel trapped on-site. They are typically crowded with equipment, mounted in multi-function rack mount cabinets to allow updating. The concentration of equipment often requires special electrical uninterruptible power supply (UPS) feeds and air conditioning . Since

2214-418: The rack. Some rack slides even include a tilt mechanism allowing easy access to the top or bottom of rack-mounted equipment when it is fully extended from the rack. Slides or rails for computers and other data processing equipment such as disk arrays or routers often need to be purchased directly from the equipment manufacturer, as there is no standardization on such equipment's thickness (measurement from

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2268-401: The rapid growth of the toll network, the engineering department of AT&T undertook a systematic redesign, resulting in a family of modular factory-assembled panels all "designed to mount on vertical supports spaced 19 1 ⁄ 2 inches between centers. The height of the different panels will vary,... but... in all cases to be a whole multiple of 1 + 3 ⁄ 4 inches." By 1934, it

2322-424: The shape of the twist handle. There is no standard for airflow and cooling of rack-mounted equipment. A variety of airflow patterns can be found, including front intakes and rear exhausts, as well as side intakes and exhausts. Low-wattage devices may not employ active cooling, but use only passive thermal radiation and convection to dissipate heat. For rack-mounted computer servers, devices generally intake air on

2376-407: The side of the rack to the equipment) or means for mounting to the rail. A rails kit may include a cable management arm (CMA), which folds the cables attached to the server and allows them to expand neatly when the server is slid out, without being disconnected. Computer servers designed for rack-mounting can include a number of extra features to make the server easy to use in the rack: When there

2430-508: The space. Some control rooms are themselves under continuous video surveillance and recording, for security and personnel accountability purposes. Many control rooms are occupied on a " 24/7/365 " basis, and may have multiple people on duty at all times (such as implementation of a " two-man rule "), to ensure continuous vigilance. Other special-purpose control room spaces may be temporarily set up for special projects (such as an oceanographic exploration mission), and closed or dismantled once

2484-461: The square-hole rack. Square-hole racks allow boltless mounting, such that the rack-mount equipment only needs to insert through and hook down into the lip of the square hole. Installation and removal of hardware in a square-hole rack is very easy and boltless, where the weight of the equipment and small retention clips are all that is necessary to hold the equipment in place. Older equipment meant for round-hole or tapped-hole racks can still be used, with

2538-618: The standard 24-inch-wide (610 mm) floor tiles used in most data centers. Racks carrying telecom equipment like routers and switches often have extra width to accommodate the many cables on the sides. Four-post racks allow for mounting rails to support the equipment at the front and rear. These racks may be open in construction without sides or doors or may be enclosed by front and/or rear doors, side panels, and tops. Most data centers use four-post racks. Two-post racks provide two vertical posts. These posts are typically heavy gauge metal or extruded aluminum. A top bar and wide foot connect

2592-472: The technology that is mounted within it has changed considerably and the set of fields to which racks are applied has greatly expanded. The 19-inch (482.6 mm) standard rack arrangement is widely used throughout the telecommunications , computing , audio , video , entertainment and other industries, though the Western Electric 23-inch standard , with holes on 1-inch (25.4 mm) centers,

2646-556: The top or bottom of the region. Such a region is commonly known as a U , for unit , RU for rack unit or, in German, HE , for Höheneinheit . Heights within racks are measured by this unit. Rack-mountable equipment is usually designed to occupy some integer number of U. For example, an oscilloscope might be 4U high. Rack-mountable computers and servers are mostly between 1U and 4U high. A blade server enclosure might require 10U. Occasionally, one may see fractional U devices such as

2700-400: The underfloor space to the underside of enclosed rack cabinets. A difficulty with forced air fan cooling in rack equipment is that fans can fail due to age or dust. The fans themselves can be difficult to replace. In the case of network equipment, it may be necessary to unplug 50 or more cables from the device, remove the device from the rack, and then disassemble the device chassis to replace

2754-428: The use of cage nuts made for square-hole racks. Rack-mountable equipment is traditionally mounted by bolting or clipping its front panel to the rack. Within the IT industry, it is common for network/communications equipment to have multiple mounting positions, including tabletop and wall mounting, so rack-mountable equipment will often feature L-brackets that must be screwed or bolted to the equipment prior to mounting in

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2808-436: The workers. Ergonomic considerations determine the placement of humans and equipment to ensure that operators can easily move into, out of, and around the control room, and can interact with each other without any hindrances during emergency situations; and to keep noise and other distractions to a minimum. Control room scenes dealing with crisis situations appear frequently in thriller novels and action films . In addition,

2862-474: Was an established standard with holes tapped for 12-24 screws with alternating spacings of 1.25 inches (31.75 mm) and 0.5 inches (12.70 mm) The EIA standard was revised again in 1992 to comply with the 1988 public law 100-418 , setting the standard U as 15.875 mm (0.625 in) + 15.875 mm (0.625 in) + 12.7 mm (0.500 in), making each U 44.45 millimetres (1.75 in). The 19-inch rack format has remained constant while

2916-460: Was first replaced by clearance-hole (Round Hole, Round Unthreaded Holes, and Versa Rail ) racks. The holes are large enough to permit a bolt to be freely inserted through without binding, and bolts are fastened in place using cage nuts . In the event of a nut being stripped out or a bolt breaking, the nut can be easily removed and replaced with a new one. Production of clearance-hole racks is less expensive. The next innovation in rack design has been

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