The European Module Columbus of the International Space Station (ISS) is planned to be launched 2004. For its exploitation phase as well as for the early utilisation of the Space Station starting from 2003 onwards the operations procedures are now being defined in detail and the implementation of specific infrastructure has started. A decentralised operations concept will allow the investigators to perform their experiments using the telescience technique of remote experiment operations whenever feasible. User Support and Operation Centres (USOCs) will act as Facility Responsible Centres (FRC) performing the operations for multi user experiment facilities. The Columbus Control Centre (COL-CC) will perform the Columbus system operations, co-ordinate the European payload operations and provide the European Communications network. This paper gives an overview on the operations concepts and the tasks and set up of the involved sites
