Kayser Italia has been involved in the space operations since its first space projects. Back in 1994, Kayser Italia developed and operated a basic but effective dial-up network to support the ESA operations with the BION and FOTON Russian satellites. The network named “Fotonet” was able to distribute the satellites telemetry data from the Russian space centers to the European partners sites.
In 2006, during the final integration of the ELITE-S2 facility NASA offered to Kayser Italia the capability to directly manage the on-board operations by means of remote telemetry and telecommands. The first basic USOC center was setup in Livorno in 2007, already offering full telemetry and remote control capabilities, as well as capability of interaction with the NASA controllers in the voice loop. With the first on-board sessions with astronaut Leo Eyharts, the center started receiving the real-time video from the ISS.
In October 2007 Paolo Nespoli was supported in audio and video from Livorno during the scientific sessions with the Kayser Italia “Hand Posture Analyzer”.
During the first ELITE-S2 on-board sessions in 2008, the principal investigators joined the Kayser Italia engineers at the company site teaming up a complete support for the on-going operations. The presence of the investigators during the on-console sessions ensured meeting the scientific requirements while the team of engineers who also developed the facility was available for any support it would have been required.
Then the Kayser Italia team developed a set of UHB workstations (User Home Base workstations) to connect with audio and video the scientific investigators directly at their sites. In this way, the operations support was extended from a small group of scientists to their whole team, with an additional reduction of travel costs.
In 2013 Kayser Italia was awarded with the UTISS contract (ASI support for ISS utilization) and the USOC center was renewed and accommodated in the present location. Since the required activities to support new experiment went beyond the on-board sessions, Kayser Italia extended the center support capabilities also to operate pre and post flight scientific tasks, with particular focus to the biological experiments. Here the completion of the ICARO center, integrating the Payload Operations Control Centre (POCC) and the Experiments Support Center (ESC). Currently, the final user, either scientist or Agency, can benefit of a complete, end-to-end support for the science experiments and operations.
Payload Operations Control Centre Curriculum
| Period | Support sessions | Investigation | Facility | Astronauts |
| 2008-2012 | 6 | IMAGINE-2 | ELITE-S2 | Leopold Eyharts (INC 16)Garrett Reisman (INC 17)Kevin Ford (INC 33/34) |
| 2008-2012 | 6 | MOVE | ELITE-S2 | Leopold Eyharts (INC 16)Garrett Reisman (INC 17)Kevin Ford (INC 33/34) |
| 2014 | 5 | MOVE-SB | ELITE-S2 | Samantha Cristoforetti (INC 42/43) |
| 2014 | 5 | SHRINK | ELITE-S2 | Samantha Cristoforetti (INC 42/43) |
| 2015 | 3 | NATO/CYTO | KUBIK | Samantha Cristoforetti (INC 42/43) |
| 2014 | 6 | WEARMON | WEARMON | Samantha Cristoforetti (INC 42/43) |
| 2014 | 4 | DRAIN BRAIN | DRAIN BRAIN | Samantha Cristoforetti (INC 42/43) |
| 2014 | 8 | Bone Muscle Check | Bone Muscle Check | Samantha Cristoforetti (INC 42/43)Butch Wilmore (INC 41/42) |
| 2011-2016 | >10 | VIABLE | VIABLE | (many) |
| 2016 | 1 | POP 3D | POP 3D | Scott Kelly (INC 46) |
| 2017 | 5 | ASI BIOMISSION | KUBIK | Paolo Nespoli (INC 52/53) |
| 2017 | 5 | IN SITU | IN SITU | Paolo Nespoli (INC 52/53) |
| 2017 | 2 | ARAMIS | ARAMIS | Paolo Nespoli (INC 52/53) |
| 2017 | 1 | PERSEO | PERSEO | Paolo Nespoli (INC 52/53) |
| 2017 | 1 | MULTI-TROP | MULTI-TROP | Paolo Nespoli (INC 52/53) |
| 2019 | 1 | LIDAL | LIDAL-ALTEA | Luca Parmitano (INC 61) |