Exposition Mission spatiale à la Cité des sciences

The Cité des sciences et de l’industrie launches its permanent exhibition dedicated to space exploration. Step into the shoes of an astronaut and live a waking dream during your visit. An adventure during which you will discover the reality and complexity of space missions.

Mission spatiale is an invitation to journey through time and space. It offers a glimpse into the opportunities space provides, but also their limitations. The exhibition, whose journey unfolds in five parts, provides an overview of research, technologies, and reflections surrounding space missions.

Explore

Human and robotic space exploration are inseparable. In this first part, visitors discover objects that go where humans cannot for safety reasons or temporal constraints. Probes and rovers collect images and sounds and analyse atmospheres or rock samples, while also preparing for the arrival of human beings.

Travel

Prepare to drill on Europa, a moon of Jupiter located millions of kilometres from Earth. Thanks to this spectacle, experience a space expedition from lift-off to landing. From discovering launchers to choosing propulsion methods, and calculating trajectories, reality is far from resembling science fiction films!

Transit

Are you familiar with Artemis? This programme enabled the Orion spacecraft to be sent at the end of 2022 using the SLS launcher. Orion successfully completed its first uncrewed journey around the Moon, paving the way for a future crewed mission. Discover a replica of Orion and another of I-HAB, the European habitat module of the Lunar Gateway space station.

Stay

Here, visitors travel into the future, set foot on the Moon, and wander through an established base. How to live autonomously, using resources found on site and recycling as much as possible? What architectural solutions are there to adapt to lunar constraints? Through a multimedia game, embody an astronaut training to live a day on Mars.

Question

Take a step back. Experts speak: astrophysicist, sociologist, or geopolitician. An audiovisual display offers a reflection on our society's relationship with space.