Visit us in Washington, DC and Chantilly, VA to explore hundreds of the world’s most significant objects in aviation and space history. Free timed-entry passes are required for the Museum in DC. The ...

The 1909 Wright Military Flyer is the world's first military airplane. In 1908, the U.S. Army Signal Corps sought competitive bids for a two-seat observation aircraft. Winning designs had to meet a ...

Explore the stories of innovative individuals who contributed to early flight at the National Air and Space Museum.

Today, satellites are the battle fleet's keenest eyes. But during World War II, crews aboard lumbering flying boats provided distant, early warning of enemy ships and aircraft at sea. The Consolidated ...

Aeronautics curator Christophere Moore explores one important advancement on the B-29 Superfortress: its central fire control system.

This successful effort did not go unnoticed by certain American and Japanese naval observers who began to visualize experimenting with specialized “airplane carrier” ships that could both launch and ...

Step outside of the Air and Space Museum and into the Lyle Tuttle Tattoo Art Collection in San Francisco, California to explore the symbolism of tattoo body art during World War II.

In October 1961, three chimpanzees were brought to Cape Canaveral to join two already there. One of the new arrivals was Enos, a native of Cameroon in west central Africa. Discover the story of the ...

Kalpana Chawla, PhD, was an engineer, pilot, and astronaut who spent more than 30 days in space over two Space Shuttle missions. Chawla was born in Karnal, India, and was fascinated by flight since ...

Conservator Lauren Gottschlich explores the conservation work recently done on a replica of the altered lithium hydroxide filter used during the Apollo 13 mission.

When the National Air and Space Museum opened its doors in July 1976, it featured in its theater a film produced specifically for the Museum called To Fly in a large format called IMAX.

Today, the United States Air Force is retiring the Predator—a military unmanned aerial vehicle that was used in attacks against al Qaeda during the war on terrorism. The Museum’s Predator, on display ...