The Moonshot Museum, set to be Pennsylvania's first space museum, has set an opening date.
Come Oct. 15, 2022, the museum will open to the public.
Located at Astrobotic Technologies Inc.'s North Side headquarters, the Moonshot Museum is a nonprofit organization that is operated by the Astrobotic Foundation and is partnered with Astrobotic, with the mission of making space more accessible to the region and promoting young people to seek careers in the space industry. The museum will feature technology that will allow visitors to experience simulated lunar missions, as well as a glass wall where visitors can watch Astrobotic build its lunar landers in real time.
“The final countdown to launching Moonshot Museum is officially underway,” Sam Moore, Moonshot Museum executive director, said in a release. “After years of designing, thinking, building, prototyping and engaging with students and members of the Pittsburgh community, we cannot wait to welcome visitors to explore a museum unlike any other. We’re thrilled to light a unique spark of space-centered curiosity in our community and spotlight the incredible space industry here in western Pennsylvania.”
Plans for the museum have long been underway, and they included a $2.7 million capital raise, with grants from the Richard King Mellon Foundation, the Henry L. Hillman Foundation, the Allegheny Foundation, the Howmet Aerospace Foundation, the Buhl Foundation, the Grable Foundation and the Remmel Foundation.
“The Moonshot Museum is a decade-long dream turned reality,” John Thornton, founding board member of Moonshot Museum and Astrobotic CEO, said in a release. “It was designed for the community to literally step into the world of the space industry. We want young people to see themselves in our work, meet the real people building spacecraft and discover that there’s a place for them in space.”
Following its opening date of Saturday, Oct. 15, the Moonshot Museum will be open daily from Wednesday through Sunday. Admissions is $10 for adults and $5 for children. On Oct. 13, the museum is hosting an exclusive preview day for North Side residents.
The announcement of the Moonshot Museum’s opening comes amidst several other major developments for Astrobotic, including a $6.2 million grant from NASA. Astrobotic is one of three companies to receive funding from NASA in order to build and prototype a deployable solar array system for use on the moon. The efforts are a part of NASA’s Artemis missions, with the goal of returning humans to the lunar surface and establishing a long-term presence near the moon’s south pole. Artemis I, which is the first integrated test of NASA’s Orion spacecraft and its Space Launch System rocket, is set to take place on Aug. 29.
In addition, Astrobotic landed a contract with NASA’s Small Business Innovation Research Sequential Phase II program to develop and test technologies on NASA’s CubeRover platform that will help the rover survive the lunar night, where temperatures can drop low enough to disable components of the rover. As such, NASA’s CubeRover will fly to the moon on one of Astrobotic’s upcoming lander missions. Astrobotic has also been subcontracted by Advanced Cooling Technologies Inc. on a separate NASA Sequential SBIR for $1.8 million to develop and test lunar night thermal systems on rovers and landers.
