Today, as the Exploring Space gallery closes after welcoming tens of millions of visitors over four decades, the Science Museum announced that its new Space gallery will open to the public on Saturday 20 September 2025. This significant gallery will bring together objects that celebrate the first space age and the future of space exploration, including cutting-edge prototype technology created in the UK and never before displayed.
There will be plenty of opportunities to discover more about our galaxy, space exploration and how astronauts go to the toilet with free activities taking place throughout summer at the Science Museum. The Space Show, a stellar new free family show in the Lecture Theatre, will invite visitors to see and take part in science demonstrations and live experiments.
Sir Ian Blatchford, Director and Chief Executive of the Science Museum Group, said: ‘As a species, we’ve always looked to the stars. I have no doubt that the wonders of space we showcase in our new gallery will inspire and thrill a new generation of visitors. Whether you’re fascinated by the engineering behind space exploration, inspired by stories of space pioneers, or simply curious about the planets, Space invites you to delve into humanity’s greatest adventure.’
Libby Jackson, Head of Space at the Science Museum, said: ‘I remember visiting Exploring Space decades ago, and then, when I was a student at Imperial College, I’d spend my lunch there soaking up the stories. It opened my eyes to the possibilities of careers in space, and the sector I would one day work in. With so many opportunities for visitors to discover the wonders of space this summer, I’m thrilled we can continue to inspire young people to imagine what might be out there for them.’
Please note: There is more about this new gallery following the details of summer activities.
A SUMMER OF SPACE-INSPIRED ACTIVITIES
From exploring out-of-this-world objects throughout the museum to a sleepover in our galleries, there’s a galactic adventure for everyone at the Science Museum this summer.
NEW: The Space Show
Daily, Saturday 26 July – Sunday 31 August 2025
Ticketed, Free
This new free family show is packed with live science experiments for visitors to enjoy. There will be flames and a floating plate of whipped cream in this fun interactive experience to support Science Museum Mission Control this summer.
NEW: Summer Space Trail inspired by Disney & Pixar’s Elio
Until Sunday 31 August 2025
Free
Visitors can ignite their curiosity about the cosmos with our free Summer Space Trail, a collaboration with Disney & Pixar’s new film, Elio. It will take visitors on a journey to find game-changing space objects as they channel their inner space explorer.
NEW: Space Toilet Tales
Weekends, until Sunday 20 July 2025
Daily, Wednesday 23 July – Monday 1 September 2025
Free
This summer, visitors can meet a Science Museum Explainer and see a replica space toilet to discover how astronauts answer the call of nature in orbit. Our Explainers can answer pressing questions about space toilets – and what they might look like in the future.
Astronights
20 June, 11 July and 17 October 2025
Standard tickets: £80; VIP tickets: £120
Age: 7-11
Younger campers can experience a sleepover like no other at the Science Museum. Astronights includes exciting science shows and hands-on workshops, as well as the chance to see the museum after dark. This year’s programme is supported by official sponsor TEMPUR®, who will be gifting all campers a travel pillow.
SENsory Astronights
2 August 2025
Standard tickets: £35
Age: 7-11
SENsory Astronights is designed for children with special educational needs or disabilities. Younger campers can experience a sleepover like no other, and exploring the galleries after dark and taking part in exciting science shows and workshops.
A Beautiful Planet 3D (U)
IMAX: The Ronson Theatre
Ticketed, from £12. Family discounts available. Ages 3 and under go free.
Visitors can catch A Beautiful Planet 3D (U) which showcases the tasks of crew onboard the International Space Station. Narrated by Jennifer Lawrence, it provides a unique vantage point to witness humanity’s impact on the world.
Wonderlab
Ticketed, from £15. Ages 3 and under go free.
Visitors can explore Wonderlab and step into a rotating solar system to discover how planets orbit the Sun or join The Rocket Show to learn how astronauts are launched into space with the talented team of Explainers.
SIGNIFICANT NEW GALLERY TO HIGHLIGHT STORIES OF SPACE EXPLORATION
Space gallery
Ticketed, Free
Opening Saturday 20 September 2025
www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/see-and-do/space
In September 2025, the Science Museum will open a new gallery dedicated to celebrating the first space age and the future of space exploration. Space will invite visitors to discover a new perspective on significant space objects as it brings together iconic historic objects and cutting-edge prototypes. The gallery offers visitors not only the chance to learn from the past but represents the preservation of the present to predict the future.
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Sokol KV-2 rescue suit worn by Helen Sharman, 1991 (c) Science Museum Group
The new gallery will feature never-before-seen innovations from home and abroad. Developed in part by the company behind Transformers and Furbys – in the first, and so far only, collaboration between a space agency (JAXA) and a toy company (Takara Tomy) – the LEV-2 is the smallest rover to operate on the Moon and employed a novel way to autonomously move. The LEV-2’s round outer-sphere separates and then the halves function as wheels. It was dubbed by the press, the ‘rolly-polly probe’. On display in the UK for the first time, Space will display the model used to test the movement of the rover.
Space will explore some of the new technologies from the rapidly expanding UK space sector. For example, visitors able to see prototypes of new propulsion systems by Magdrive, which would allow small satellites to more quickly and easily manoeuvre while in orbit. The first of these prototypes was developed by one of the founders in his daughter’s bedroom during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown. The British company’s electric propulsion technology uses a novel metal propellent. This summer, Magdrive is launching the first in-orbit test of its prototype space thruster and, as part of this, ran a competition in collaboration with the Science Museum to design its mission patch. The winning patch design will be used for the mission and displayed alongside the prototype thruster in the new Space gallery.
Also on display will be a prototype heat shield developed by Welsh company Space Forge to protect materials manufactured in orbit as they are transported to Earth. Commercial space return vehicles currently use heat shields which require replacement after every flight. In contrast, Space Forge’s Pridwen heat shield is made of a high temperature alloy which is large enough to radiate the heat of re-entry away without burning the material. This prototype represents an opportunity to develop a fully reusable shield.
As well as featuring technology, like the Spire LEMUR2 nanosatellite used to provide weather information to climate scientists, the gallery will also highlight the stories of the people behind the science. For example, Zoe Clark: Zoe joined Spire in Glasgow as a 16-year-old apprentice and went on to become a satellite lead technician, making sure that the satellites were ready. She is now the mission manager, overseeing the launches of Spire’s satellites.
This British story of space exploration stretches back decades. Space will redisplay the Sokol spacesuit worn by Helen Sharman, who was just 27 years old when she became the first Briton in space. Her journey there was anything but typical. Sharman was working at the confectioners, Mars, when she answered a radio ad to join a mission to the Mir Space Station. 54 specific measurements went into creating her 10kg Sokol KV2 spacesuit, which she wore during the riskiest parts of the flight. Never meant to last as long as they have, the materials of the suit have undergone vital conservation work this summer to ensure that this thirty-year-old spacesuit can continue to inspire visitors for many years to come.
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L-R: Apollo 10 command module, call sign ‘Charlie Brown’ (c) Science Museum Group; View of Tim Peake’s Soyuz TMA-19M descent module (c) Science Museum Group
The Soyuz TMA-19M Descent Module, which transported the UK’s first ESA astronaut Tim Peake to and from the ISS – and clocked 74,000,000 miles as it orbited the Earth – was the first flown human spacecraft acquired by the UK when it was collected by the Science Museum Group. Visitors will be able to see the scorched marks on the base of the capsule and peer inside its remarkably tight quarters in its display in Space. Suspended above the gallery will be the module’s 25m-wide parachute, which slowed the descent speed from 287km per hour to just 22km per hour.
For the first time two human flown spacecraft will be displayed alongside one another in the museum, with visitors able to examine the differences between the Soyuz spacecraft and the Apollo 10 command module, which orbited the Moon in 1969. Apollo 10 was launched in May 1969 on a lunar orbital mission as the dress rehearsal for the actual Apollo 11 landing. It remains the fastest ever crewed vehicle, exceeding 24,790 mph on its return to Earth. Also on display in the gallery will be the radio headset used by Apollo 11 astronaut Neil Armstrong to communicate with Mission Control.
The gallery will feature an RL10 rocket engine, which has helped launch spacecraft to every planet in the Solar System. First used in 1963, more than 500 RL10 engines have since flown; these engines were part of the first spacecraft from Earth to venture into interstellar space and still play a major role in space exploration six decades later. An updated version of this engine is used as part of the Artemis programme, which plans to take humans back to the Moon for the first time since 1972.
A three-billion-year-old piece of the Moon will form a focal point in Space. Visitors will be able to get close to a sample from one of the largest Moon rocks collected: Great Scott. Such was the size of the rock, Astronaut David Scott had to roll it up the leg of his space suit and then tip it into the Lunar Rover. It is thought to have lain on the surface for approximately 80 million years before it was collected during the Apollo 15 mission.
Visitors to Space will also be able to get up close to the full-size testing model of BepiColombo. The spacecraft which launched in 2018 is due to arrive at Mercury – the least explored rocky planet in the solar system – in 2026 as part of an ESA/JAXA mission. Meanwhile, at the centre of the gallery, visitors will discover the popular Science on a Sphere installation. This will display a reimagined film of planetary data, narrated by Helen Sharman who will share insights related to the search for extraterrestrial life.
