On Monday, July 28, five new galleries will open to visitors at the National Air and Space Museum as part of the Smithsonian Institution’s seven-year-long renovation of the aerospace museum on the National Mall. With a free, timed-entry pass—those will be available to reserve starting on June 13—visitors can get a look at the following galleries once they’re unveiled: “Boeing Milestones of Flight Hall,” “Futures in Space,” “Barron Hilton Pioneers of Flight,” “World War I: The Birth of Military Aviation,” and the Allan and Shelley Holt Innovations Gallery. The museum also announced today that their Lockheed Martin IMAX theater will be reopening, along with a newly-renovated Mall entrance on Jefferson Drive.
The estimated $1 billion renovation project began in December 2018, with the museum phasing in its exhibition re-openings while temporarily closing twice for construction and the Covid-19 pandemic. The first eight of its 20 gallery spaces reopened in October 2022. The museum also announced today that their last seven galleries are set to reopen July 1, 2026, in time for the nation’s 250th celebrations.
The galleries opening this July include both entirely new spaces as well as revamped favorites. Classic Air and Space Museum artifacts including the Apollo Lunar Module 2 and a touchable moon rock will be back on display for visitors to see, along with new additions like RocketMotorTwo from the outer space tourism organization Virgin Galactic. The museum is expecting to acquire 1,400 new artifacts during the entire overhaul.
For history buffs, the “World War I: The Birth of Military Aviation” exhibit is a new gallery on how aircraft changed warfare during the Great War, with Sopwith Camel battle planes on display. In the “Boeing Milestones of Flight Hall,” expect to again see the Mercury Friendship 7—the spacecraft that carried John Glenn, as he became the first American astronaut to orbit Earth. The “Barron Hilton Pioneers of Flight” gallery is back with a fresh, renovated look, but visitors can still see beloved artifacts such as the Spirit of St. Louis and Amelia Earhart’s Lockheed 5B Vega, which she flew across the Atlantic Ocean.
The new “Futures in Space” exhibit asks questions such as “who decides who gets to go to space?” as it examines the future of space exploration and tourism. The new “Aerospace and Our Changing Environment” exhibit, part of the Allan and Shelley Holt Innovations Gallery, examines how aircraft and spacecraft developments can be made in the context of climate change mitigation.
For more information on all of the upcoming exhibits, including those expected to open in July 2026, see this page on the National Air and Space Museum’s website.
The National Air and Space Museum is between Independence Avenue and Jefferson Drive, and between Fourth and Seventh streets, SW, and is open every day except December 25 from 10 AM to 5:30 PM. Admission is free, but timed-entry passes are required.
