The Rocket Tower
A Thor Able and a Blue Streak stand upright inside a translucent 42-metre tower you ride up between by lift.
Two real rockets stand upright inside a translucent 42-metre tower you can see from the road before you arrive: that is the welcome at the National Space Centre, the largest space museum in Britain, on the bank of the River Soar in Belgrave, north of Leicester city centre. The tower is by Nicholas Grimshaw, architect of the Eden Project in Cornwall, and its walls are inflated pillows of semi-transparent plastic that glow after dark. Inside stand an American Thor Able and a British Blue Streak, and you rise between them by lift or stairs through floors of exhibits. The centre opened on 30 June 2001 and is a charity with no day-to-day government funding, which partly explains the fairly steep ticket. You get a lot for it: a genuine piece of moon rock brought back by Apollo 17, a Russian Soyuz capsule, a Sputnik replica, and a Russian space toilet that gets more laughs from children than anything else in the building. There is also the original mission control for Beagle 2, the British probe that went missing on Mars, and the spacesuit Matt Damon wore in The Martian. Most galleries are fully hands-on, all buttons, screens and simulators; this is a museum built for hands rather than eyes. The Sir Patrick Moore Planetarium is the biggest in the UK at 192 seats, and one show is included in admission on your first visit; extra shows cost £5, paid on site and not bookable online. You pick your included show slot at online checkout, or at the ticket desk if you pay at the door, so choose early because afternoon slots fill during school holidays. Three to four hours is enough, and it is an excellent outing for families with children of roughly five to twelve; younger ones tire after an hour. The building is pushchair-friendly with lifts between floors, and the Boosters cafe inside gets very busy between 12:00 and 14:00. No dedicated prayer room is advertised, though staff can usually arrange a quiet room on request. Getting there: driving is easiest, parking is £4 for the day, and the centre is about ten minutes by car from Leicester railway station or the city centre. Bus 54 runs every ten minutes from Haymarket bus station in the centre and stops a short walk away. It opens daily 10:00-16:00 on weekdays and until 17:00 at weekends, with scattered closed days listed on the official calendar. A ticket bought online automatically becomes a free annual pass for return visits, which means little to a Gulf visitor but explains why Midlands families keep coming back. It is not worth a dedicated trip from London on its own, but if you are staying in Leicester or passing through on the way to Manchester or the Peak District, it is the best half-day in the city with children.
A Thor Able and a Blue Streak stand upright inside a translucent 42-metre tower you ride up between by lift.
192 seats and one show included in the ticket; pick your slot at checkout before the afternoon shows fill.
A real Apollo 17 sample, a Soyuz capsule and a space toilet that gets more laughs than any other exhibit.
Exploration Drive, Belgrave, Leicester LE4 5NS
Not a dedicated trip from London; the Science Museum there is free and has space galleries too. But if you are based in Leicester or driving between London and Manchester or the Peak District, a half-day stop with children aged roughly 5 to 12 is worth it: the galleries are far more hands-on than the Science Museum's, and the planetarium is bigger.
Booking is not compulsory, but buying online saves a pound per person and turns the ticket into a free annual pass. What genuinely fills in the school holidays is the afternoon planetarium slots, so choose your included show when you buy. In summer 2026 (25 June to 1 September) the centre temporarily trimmed its prices slightly, so check the official website before you buy, as offers change.