National Air Force Museum in Trenton hosts Space Academy on Family Day

For several years now, the National Air Force Museum of Canada in Trenton has held children’s programming on Family Day.

Theo Czerny-Holownia, the museum’s marketing and communications administrator, says last year’s turnout was amazing.

“Last year we had approximately 1,200 people come through over the day on Family Day,” said Czerny-Holownia, “so we’re hoping to meet or exceed that this year.”

Only an hour after the doors opened at the museum, 250 people were already running their children through the day’s events.

This year, they chose Space Academy as a theme, Czerny-Holownia said.

Children get a passport that they can collect a stamp for each activity they complete.

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Czerny-Holownia says the aim is to give children experience with a broad spectrum of space exploration activities.

“They can land a Soyuz capsule, so we’ve got things with little parachutes and they’re trying to land them on the landing site,” he said, offering an example.

There’s also retrieving a satellite using a mock Canadian-built Shuttle Remote Manipulator System, otherwise known as the Canadarm, and children can also design their own mission patch.

Space Academy was chosen to tie in with an existing exhibit at the museum, called Spoon to Space. 

Czerny-Holownia says Ingenium Aerospace, the Canadian Agriculture and Food Museum and the Canadian Space Agency partnered to create the exhibit.

“It all connects to how satellites impact agriculture here in Canada,” he said, “how that impacts our daily life and how food is produced.”

Space Academy runs just for Family Day, while the Spoon to Space exhibit is at the National Air Force Museum of Canada until April 28.