Visitors to the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C., will soon get a fresh look at the profound effect aviation and spaceflight have had on their lives.
The newly renovated Boeing Milestones of Flight Hall is set to open Friday, coinciding with the 40th anniversary of the museum. The reopening will kick off with a ceremony at 8:30 p.m. and an overnight celebratory event.
Along with new additions to the exhibit, the hall features a new digital component called Go Flight, allowing visitors to delve deeper into the artifacts through an interactive wall, a mobile app and the museum’s redesigned website.
The hall’s renovation, two years in the making, was funded by a donation from Boeing.
See pictures of the newly renovated exhibit below.
The Viking Lander displayed in the exhibit.Mark Avino/Smithsonian’s National Air and Space MuseumThe museum’s new Go Flight digital experience features a 16-foot-by-12-foot interactive wall will help visitors to the Boeing Milestones of Flight Hall find the artifacts they want to see.Eric Long/Smithsonian’s National Air and Space MuseumSpaceShipOne and Bell X-1 return to the exhibit.Photo by Eric Long/Smithsonian’s National Air and Space MuseumA massive wind-tunnel fan used by the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, NASA’s predecessor, on display at the Hall.Eric Long/Smithsonian’s National Air and Space MuseumTelstar 1, the world’s first active communications satellite, is now on display at the exhibit.Eric Long/Smithsonian’s National Air and Space MuseumA new addition to the Hall, the studio model of the Starship Enterprise used in the original Star Trek series has just completed a two-year restoration process.Eric Long/Smithsonian’s National Air and Space MuseumSpirit of St. Louis, the plane Charles Lindbergh used to make the first solo nonstop transatlantic flight, returns to the exhibit.Eric Long/Smithsonian’s National Air and Space MuseumThe North American X-15 was the first winged aircraft to attain hypersonic velocities of Mach 4, 5 and 6 and to operate at altitudes well above 100,000 feet.Eric Long/Smithsonian’s National Air and Space MuseumAstronaut John Glenn became the first American to orbit Earth in Mercury Friendship 7, right. Gemini IV, left, was the second of 10 manned Gemini missions, which perfected the techniques of spacecraft rendezvous and docking and demonstrated that astronauts could withstand prolonged weightlessness for the planned Apollo missions to the moon.Eric Long/Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum
