After almost 40 years the Exploring Space gallery will close this summer as part of preparations for a new Space gallery, opening in autumn 2025;
The public has until 2 June to visit this popular gallery, which will partially close after 22 April following the Easter holidays;
Incredible objects on display include the Soyuz spacecraft that carried astronaut Tim Peake back to Earth, the spacesuit worn by the first Briton in space and a three-billion-year-old piece of the Moon;

After welcoming tens of millions of visitors over almost four decades, the Science Museum today announced the upcoming closure of the Exploring Space gallery. Just a few months remain for the public to visit before the gallery closes as part of preparations for a new Space gallery which will open in autumn 2025.

Opened in 1986 and subsequently updated, the Exploring Space gallery showcases real rockets and spacecraft, inviting visitors to discover how humanity has ventured into orbit, travelled to the Moon and explored the solar system and beyond. The gallery will undergo a four-month phased closure, partially closing after Tuesday 22 April at the end of the Easter holidays and closing fully after Monday 2 June 2025. A central walkway will be maintained following the gallery’s closure, enabling visitors to access other areas of the museum.

Visitors can see the Sokol spacesuit worn by Helen Sharman, the first Briton in space, during her 1991 space flight until 24 February, when the spacesuit will be temporarily removed to undergo vital conservation work ahead of its display in the new Space gallery. This specialist textile conservation work will ensure this thirty-year-old spacesuit can continue to inspire visitors for many years to come.

Until 22 April, visitors to the gallery can marvel at the Soyuz TMA-19M spacecraft, which returned British astronaut Tim Peake to Earth following six months in orbit and the first spacewalk by a UK astronaut, and its 25m diameter main parachute, which is as wide as an Olympic-sized swimming pool. This spacecraft began its descent to Earth hitting the Earth’s atmosphere at more than 17,000 miles per hour and reached temperatures of more than 1500°C, leaving its outer surface melted and charred.

Significant objects from the history of rockets are on show. Visitors can walk under a British Black Arrow rocket and a United States Scout rocket suspended from the gallery’s ceiling and see the intricate detail of a RL10 rocket engine, which helped launch spacecraft to every planet in the Solar System, and a J-2 rocket engine which powered the Apollo astronauts to the Moon.

Following the partial closure of Exploring Space from 23 April 2025, visitors will still be able to discover how we are able to live in space, to breathe, eat, drink and even go to the toilet. Many fascinating items – from space food to part of the most powerful camera ever sent to another planet and a suspended model of the Hubble Space Telescope – will remain on display in the gallery until 2 June. Visitors can also study full-size replicas of the Beagle 2 Mars lander, the Huygens Titan spacecraft and Eagle, the lander that took astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin to the Moon in 1969. At the centre of the gallery, the popular Science on a Sphere installation will continue to display planetary data from our solar system on a large, suspended sphere, with a narrator sharing insights, until 2 June.

Ahead of Space opening in autumn 2025, visitors will be able to take part in Space Lates, join space-themed volunteer-led tours, take part in free and fun interactive space shows led by the museum’s Explainers, watch A Beautiful Planet in IMAX: The Ronson Theatre and see other space related objects on display around the museum as part of a self-guided tour.

Space-related objects which remain on display elsewhere in the museum include an impressive full-size telecommunications satellite, Eurostar 3000, one of the first GPS receivers, a Raspberry Pi computer which was used on the International Space Station, a satellite-based scientific instrument which precisely measures sea surface temperatures and several models of significant satellites and spacecraft.

Following the closure of Exploring Space, iconic space objects such as the Apollo 10 Command Module, which conducted the dress rehearsal in May 1969 for the Moon landings, and the Soyuz capsule will be carefully moved through the museum ready to be displayed in the new Space gallery.