OREANDA-NEWS. On 24 March 2009 was announced, that Moscow’s Museum of Space Exploration located near the All-Russian Exhibition Centre aka VVTs is to be open after a 3-year reconstruction on April 12, the Day of Space Exploration.

According to Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov, the renewed museum of space exploration is now much bigger than it was before the reconstruction. Its areas are extended, its facilities are improved.

The official noted that visitors to the museum would be able to acquaint themselves with the Russian history of space exploration and rocket engineering by visual demonstration.

The reconstruction of the museum of space exploration on Mira Avenue was initiated in 2006. Originally, it was opened in a stylobate section of the monument To Space Explorers in 1981, on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of Yury Gagarin’s flight into space.

The city authorities decided to revamp the pipelines and networks as well as engineering and utility services rooms and to enlarge an exposition hall of the museum by 100 square metres, its archive storage by 4 times. The 100-metre monument To Space Explorers in the shape of a rocket soaring upwards that was erected in 1964 is also to be restored.

The renewed museum is designed to have an 8,000-square-metre area, including 3,500 square metres intended for an exposition.

When the museum has undergone a reconstruction, there will be a lot of new exhibits and the real space simulators which enable to make a virtual trip in the MKS international orbital station, visit all of its units and go into outer space. The other model will enable to travel across the Mir space station.