Star Wars: An X-Wing Is Preparing to Land at the Smithsonian Museum
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As vaccination efforts ramp up across the United States, vacations and trips are resuming all over the country. A good few of them are dedicated to the Smithsonian, and it turns out the branch has been gifted something from a galaxy far, far away. According to the museum, it has opened a
Star Wars exhibit of sorts at the National Air and Space Museum that any fan will love.
The update comes from the Smithsonian Magazine as the latest issue covers the branch s X-Wing arrival. Over in Virginia, the Mary Baker Engen Restoration Hangar has welcomed an X-Wing courtesy of Lucasfilm. The
Smithsonian Welcomes Star Wars X-Wing Starfighter
Smithsonian Welcomes Star Wars X-Wing Starfighter
This X-wing Starfighter appeared in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker and is on long-term loan from Lucasfilm. It is pictured here in the Mary Baker Engen Restoration Hangar at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center. It will go on display, fully assembled, in 2022 in the museum s flagship building on the National Mall.
On May 4th, as now seems appropriate, we were all treated to the extraordinary sight of an X-Wing Starfighter movie prop sitting in the Mary Baker Engen Restoration Hangar, as if awaiting its turn in the restoration queue at the Smithsonian’s Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Virginia. The museum’s press release below explains exactly how this coolly amusing occurrence came to be…
The National Air and Space Museum holds some of the most hallowed objects of the aerial age.
Visitors can marvel at the 1903 Wright Flyer that skimmed over Kitty Hawk, N.C., the bright red Lockheed 5B Vega that Amelia Earhart piloted alone across the Atlantic Ocean and the bell-shaped Friendship 7 capsule that made John H. Glenn Jr. the first American to orbit the Earth.
Now, the museum said, it will display a spacecraft that has flown only onscreen, in an entirely fictional galaxy where good and evil seem locked in eternal battle.
That’s right: An X-wing Starfighter will grace the museum’s newly renovated building on the National Mall sometime late next year, the museum said on Tuesday, which was celebrated by “Star Wars” fans as a holiday because it was May 4 (May the 4th be with you).
The Smithsonian reopened the National Air and Space Museum’s Steven F.Udvar-HazyCenter to the public Wednesday, May 5, on the 60th anniversary of the first American spaceflight and for the first time, the Mercury mission’s Freedom 7 capsule that carried Alan Shepard into space was on display.
On May 5, 1961, he made the first crewed American flight into space. Shepard would go on to walk on the moon.
The Mercury mission’s Freedom 7 capsule that carried Alan Shepard into space on May 5, 1961, the first crewed American spaceflight. [Renss Greene/Loudoun Now]
But if the historic Freedom 7 space capsule isn’t enough, visitors will for the first time also get to see to a Blue Angels F/A-18C on display, which the museum acquired in November after it flew into Washington Dulles International Airport.
May Fourth is informally the
Star Wars Day holiday, which random brands typically use to hawk their wares. Although it’s not as bad as the promotions that come out of the woodwork on April Fools’ Day, I think I’m drawing the line at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum adding an X-wing Starfighter from
Star Wars to its collection. The museum announced today that the famous ship would be going on display in 2022, via a prop loan from the Disney-owned production company, Lucasfilm.
The Smithsonian says the X-wing in question is from
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker and will be displayed outside the museum’s Albert Einstein Planetarium after undergoing “conservation in the Restoration Hangar in the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center.”