SPACE MUSEUM

The Space Museum opened on June 27, 2001, inside the Institute of Space Astronomy, an institution built under Professor Grigor Gurzadyan. It holds hardware and paperwork from Armenia's early space-research years, the 1960s through the 1980s, work that began with Gurzadyan's projects in Byurakan.

The institute's Garni site is where the ORION space observatories were designed and built, and where about 40 cosmonauts went through pre-flight training. The museum's cases hold instruments that flew in orbit alongside documents from cosmonauts, spacecraft engineers, and the scientists who ran the programs.

The center is currently headed by Professor Vahagn Gurzadyan.

The coordinates place the museum about 7 km east-northeast of Yerevan in a straight line. The center's own materials describe the site as Garni, on the grounds of the Institute of Space Astronomy.