Air and Space Museum opens At Home in Space, sixth of seven new galleries

At Home in Space opens

At Home in Space opened on 30 October 2026, the sixth of seven new galleries at the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum. The museum said the gallery covers more than 50 years of people living and working in orbit, from the shuttle era to plans for bases on the Moon and Mars.

The final two openings complete a renovation begun in 2018, the museum said. The museum says the entire museum will be accessible again after a multi-phase redevelopment. Admission is free, but visitors need timed-entry passes. Ars Technica reported the work lasted seven years and cost nearly $1 billion.

What is inside

Objects include a space shuttle main engine, a flown Extravehicular Mobility Unit spacesuit and the Robonaut 1A humanoid robot, the museum said. Visitors can walk through a full-scale mock-up of the International Space Station's Destiny laboratory module, which holds DNA sequencing tools and coffee cups designed for microgravity. Flight suits worn by Guy Bluford and Sally Ride are on display.

Ars Technica reported that fragments of the Challenger and Columbia shuttles are shown separately, that a scale model of the Orion capsule stands in the space reserved for the Artemis I spacecraft until NASA hands over the original, and that curator Jennifer Levasseur described the flown spacesuit as the first and possibly only fully flight-used set of such equipment displayed to the public.

50th anniversary and records

The museum opened on 1 July 1976, days before the US bicentennial. Its 50th anniversary was 1 July 2026. The nation's 250th anniversary falls on 4 July 2026. Five other galleries opened on 1 July 2026: the Flight and the Arts Center, Jay I. Kislak World War II in the Air, U.S. National Science Foundation Discovering Our Universe, RTX Living in the Space Age and Textron How Things Fly.

The museum had hoped to open all seven remaining galleries on 1 July, but the schedule was pushed back by the government shutdown in autumn 2025, collectSPACE reported. The first phase reopened in October 2022 with eight galleries and the Northrop Grumman Planetarium; a second added five in July 2025, the museum said. The renovation covered all 20 exhibition spaces, the exterior cladding and outdated mechanical systems.

The museum's 50 for 50: 50 Artifacts from 50 States countdown began in May, collectSPACE reported, with one object per state before the 1 July date. The museum also plans to put records for all objects currently on display at the Mall building and the Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Virginia, online, giving access to images and information for more than 6,000 objects in the national collection, it said.

What happens next

Modern Military Aviation opens on 11 November, Veterans Day, completing the renovation. The museum said highlights include the North American F-86 Sabre, Bell UH-1H Huey and General Atomics MQ-1L Predator. Anniversary activities include a film series, lectures, special merchandise and digital offerings.