COLUMBUS – The National Museum of the U.S. Air Force’s Missile and Space Gallery will re-open on July 3 after being closed for nearly seven months for construction (above) linking the gallery to the museum’s new fourth building.
Officials were hoping to re-open the gallery during the busy summer travel season.
“We know that many of our visitors have been eagerly awaiting the re-opening of the Missile and Space Gallery, and we are extremely pleased to be able to re-open it and provide access to the Cold War Gallery overlook once again,” said museum director Lt. Gen. (Ret.) Jack Hudson.
The museum also recently announced that the Space Shuttle Exhibit and current STEM Learning Node will close beginning Aug. 3 in preparation for their move to the 224,000 square-foot fourth building, which is scheduled to open to the public in the spring of 2016, and which will house four new galleries: Presidential, Research and Development, Space and Global Reach, along with three STEM “learning nodes.”
The C-141 Hanoi Taxi, in the Air Park, and Long-EZ, X-5 and X-15 in the R&D Gallery are scheduled to be moved to the museum’s restoration area in late June for refurbishment prior to their move to the fourth building.
Each year about one million visitors come to the museum at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base near Dayton, the world’s largest military aviation museum.
It features more than 360 aerospace vehicles and missiles and thousands of artifacts on more than 17 acres of indoor exhibit space.