Perhaps deliberately, the FAA’s Air Traffic Control System Command Center (ATCSCC) is not easy to find. Tucked away in the countryside near Herndon, Va., the facility looks like any of the other low-rise high-tech buildings in the neighborhood. But unlike the others, the ATCSCC has no large signs announcing its owner’s name, no imposing entrance and no flags flying outside. And there’s no admittance without prior clearance and an established need to be there. The ATCSCC is, after all, the nerve center of the U.S. National Airspace System (NAS). Security is tight, but not overbearingly so, in contrast to Dulles, just a few miles away.
The building’s unassuming exterior does not prepare a first-time visitor for what’s inside. The initial impression is a memory flashback to NASA’s Houston Mission Control, when Neil Armstrong and his fellow astronauts were commuting to and from the moon. The FAA’s command center has a similar look to it, although smaller, with large display screens around the walls and banks of specialist control consoles, each with three or four monitor screens, spread across the floor.
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