What is a museum of cosmonautics of St. Petersburg? Its exposition is dedicated to the history of Russian space and rocket technology. Here you can learn about the role played by St. Petersburg engineers, scientists, designers in the development of technology and science.
Appearance story
The Museum of Cosmonautics and Rocket Technology named after P. Glushko appeared in the premises of the right part of the Ioannovsky ravelin. Here in the thirties of the twentieth century there was a department of the Gas-dynamic laboratory. It became the first experimental and design organization in which the development of rocket engines, innovative at that time, was carried out.
It was this gas-dynamic laboratory that became the place for the placement of test benches of liquid and electrical elements of aircraft.
Supervisor
Head of this specialized base in the Peter and Paul Fortress, Valentin Glushko. The museum has a reconstruction of his office, workshop. There are photographs and documents here that are related to the direct activities of the laboratory.
This man made a huge contribution to the development of domestic astronautics. Therefore, while getting acquainted with his study, the guide necessarily tells the main stages of his life, professional activity, so that visitors can appreciate the scale of this legendary person.
Expositions
What attracts numerous visitors to the Cosmonautics Museum of St. Petersburg? Here you can get acquainted with the unique designs of the designers:
- see smokeless rockets that have become the basis for BM-13 mortar installations;
- fluid models;
- step engines of modern rockets.
At present, the Cosmonautics Museum of St. Petersburg in its halls shows visitors the mock-ups of the satellite launched by the Soviet Union on October 4, 1957. In addition, the exposition has a sample of the Vostok spaceship, on which on April 12, 1961, Yuri Gagarin made the first human journey into space.
Among those exhibits that the St. Petersburg Cosmonautics Museum is rightly proud of, we mention the Soyuz-16 spacecraft descent vehicle. What is he famous for? He traveled to outer space, then returned to our planet in December 1974.
What other unique space exhibits does the Peter and Paul Fortress hide in its walls? St. Petersburg has always been considered a scientific center. Therefore, the creation of a space museum here was quite logical.
Interesting museum exhibits
In the modern exposition there is a model of the International Space Station. Performed on a scale of 1 to 50, it presents visitors with a version of a manned orbital station. It is used as a multi-purpose space research laboratory.
The ISS began to deploy in low Earth orbit with the launch in November 1998 of the Zarya functional cargo block.
The construction of the ISS in orbit is carried out with the sequential addition of the next module to the complex. Currently, such a multi-purpose space research station is a joint project in which Japanese, Russian, Canadian, American, European countries take part.
This spring, the exposition of the Cosmonautics Museum was supplemented with models of a hygiene room and a dining area in the Zvezda service module of the Russian part of the ISS. What else can I see? At the entrance to the museum is the lander of the Comet satellite, which at the end of the last century has been in outer space.
Museum hours
You can get to the museum any day of the week from 11:00 to 18:00, except Wednesday. On Tuesday, visitors are invited until 17:00.
For groups of 10 to 25 people, you can order excursion services, having previously agreed on the time and duration of the tour with the museum administration.
Why do Petersburgers and guests of the northern capital want to get to the Cosmonautics Museum of St. Petersburg? The reviews indicate that it is here that there are not only excellent expositions, but also the opportunity for the development of interest in astronautics among the younger generation. For example, museum employees have developed special educational programs:
- "Space friends."
- "The space era of the northern capital."
Children of primary and secondary classes will not only get acquainted with interesting celestial objects, but also a master class on the manufacture of aliens and astronauts.
Finally
Why is the Peter and Paul Fortress directly related to space? Here, the development and testing of the first rocket engines took place, designers and engineers worked, whose names are inscribed in the history of Russian cosmonautics.
At the end of the twenties of the last century, N.I. Tikhomirov created a laboratory for the study of jet engines at the main artillery department in Moscow, but literally a few years later it was transferred to Leningrad, became known as the Gas-Dynamic Laboratory, and the Peter and Paul Fortress sheltered it. St. Petersburg is proud to have conducted research here. Aircraft gunpowder accelerators and liquid propellant rocket engines were developed here.
The level of technology formation by the thirties of the last century did not allow engineers to create a truly effective ERL, to develop a small power station for it.
All stages of the work are presented in modern expositions of the space museum. All of them are available to visitors. In the exposition halls of the museum there are always curious schoolchildren and adults who dream of learning more about Russian cosmonautics.