Kirov is the birthplace of the space program: here, in the XIX Century, was the family home of the great Russian scientist Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, father of space exploration. In 1988, in accordance with a proposal from Victor Savinikh, pilot and cosmonaut, twice Hero of the Soviet Union, the K.E. Tsiolkovsky Museum of Aviation and Cosmonautics was opened. And in 2018 it was joined by the Children’s Space Center.
Today the museum occupies a historical building and a modern space center with high-tech equipment. Visitors can not only see space suits, a landing module and models of satellites, they can also create their own cloud and try their hand at operating a hadron collider. In one of the center’s exhibition rooms visitors can go on a virtual tour of the ISS and study its layout.
