Cosmosphere

Cosmosphere is a space museum and STEM education center in Hutchinson, Kansas, United States. It was previously known as the Kansas Cosmosphere. The museum houses over 13,000 spaceflight artifacts—the largest combined collection of US and Russian spaceflight artifacts in the world—and is home to internationally acclaimed educational programs. The Cosmosphere grew from a planetarium established on the Kansas State Fairgrounds in 1962. The facility houses the largest collection of Russian space artifacts outside of Moscow, and a collection of US space artifacts second only to the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C. The Cosmosphere has four venues: The Hall of Space Museum, The Justice Planetarium, The Carey Digital Dome Theater, and Dr. Goddard's Lab (an explosive live science presentation on the history of rocketry). The Cosmosphere also hosts summer camps for all ages, and co-curricular applied STEM education programs for field trips, groups, and scouts that meet Next Generation Science Standards and common core, focused on college and career readiness. The Cosmosphere is the only Smithsonian affiliate museum in Kansas. In 2012, the Carey Digital Dome Theater upgraded from IMAX to 4K digital projection. In 2015, the Justice Planetarium underwent a complete renovation, transitioning from an optical starball projection system to the Spitz Sci-Dome XD digital projection system. In 2021, three of the museum's oldest galleries began renovations: the German Gallery, the Redstone and Sputnik Gallery, and the Kennedy Theater. These galleries opened during the late 1990s, and will get repainted, new graphics, and new sound. The Cosmosphere's SpaceWorks division has restored flown U.S. spacecraft for museums and exhibits across the globe, including artifacts that are part of the collection of the Smithsonian Institution National Air and Space Museum. Two examples of this work are the Apollo 13 Command Module Odyssey, and the Liberty Bell 7 – both on display at the Cosmosphere.