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With fewer visitors, this will be a time for a more intimate opportunity to check out some of the museum's singular and memorable items. But there are still more than enough remarkable artifacts to warrant attention-not the least of which are the SR-71 and the still-controversial Enola Gay, which recently marked the 75th anniversary of its fateful mission to drop the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan. And public tours, rides and exhibition interactives won't be available or operable. Also, some artifacts at the south end of the facility’s Boeing Aviation Hangar are draped in plastic sheeting due to a two-year roof repair project currently under way. When Hazy's doors reopen, visitors will encounter two new artifacts-the Freedom 7 capsule, marking the 60th anniversary of the first American in space, and the Blue Angels F/A 18-C. Of the 6 million visitors to both last year, 1.3 million of them came out to the Virginia site. Together, the Udvar-Hazy, along with the museum on the National Mall (currently undergoing a massive renovation ) showcase the largest collection of space and aviation artifacts on Earth.
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houses in its huge hangars thousands of notable artifacts that could never have fit inside the much smaller museum on the National Mall. The 17-acre aviation and aerospace museum, which opened in 2003 as an adjunct to the popular National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C. But the massive Udvar-Hazy indoor complex, located in Chantilly, Virginia, near Dulles International Airport, should have no problem offering plenty of space for maintaining social distancing. Visitors must comply with health and safety precautions, including timed-entry passes, hand-sanitizing stations, mask requirements for ages two and up, and limited numbers of visitors. Udvar-Hazy Center will reopen May 5 following months of closure as a public health precaution due to COVID-19. The Smithsonian Institution has announced that the Steven F.