Annual Reports

In 2023, we celebrated the 20th anniversary of the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center—welcoming nearly 25 million visitors throughout the years—and expanded our already massive collection with important new artifacts. While renovations continue at our building on the National Mall, we are still welcoming millions of visitors and expanding our global reach through innovative virtual offerings.  

2022 was an exciting year for the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum. We continued to progress on our multi-year renovation project, reopened the doors to visitors at our location on the National Mall in Washington, DC, and saw increasing numbers in visitation at our Steven F. Udvar Hazy Center in Chantilly, Virginia. 

2021 was a busy year for the National Air and Space Museum. We resumed in-person events at the museum while continuing to offer high-quality digital and virtual programs and experiences for virtual visitors around the country. We also made important progress on the renovation of the Museum in DC, setting the stage for a big 2022.

Never in the history of our Museum have our start-of-the-year plans been so abruptly and severely upended as they were in 2020. We understood quickly that the COVID-19 pandemic was something that was gravely impacting not just us and our colleagues, but the global audience we seek to inform and inspire. We had to become a fully virtual experience for our visitors. Thankfully, we were well prepared for this pivot.

In 2019, the museum made great strides along a transformative path. This includes great progress on the renovation of the building, planning for new exhibits that will reflect a broader range of stories of all people, and a successful Apollo 50 celebration that reached audiences outside of the museum walls. 

In 2018 the museum made the final preparations to embark on its seven-year Transformation to completely reimagine all galleries and public spaces in the National Mall Building to engage the millions who visit each year, and inspire a new generation of explorers, innovators and researchers. We did that while continuing to provide exhibits, events, programs and more to create wonder and stir the imaginations of all who come through our doors. In this report, we share the great year we had, and more importantly some stories of the people behind it all, the team that makes the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum a world leader.

More than 8.6 million guests passed through our doors in 2017, maintaining our position as one of the most visited museums in the world. And what awaited them at both of our locations was an experience unlike anything else on Earth. We’ve captured some of those experiences in this report. As you peruse these pages, we will introduce you to our staff, truly the heart and soul of our Museum, who made 2017 a banner year at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum.

In 2016 we commemorated 40 great years of unparalleled success, and demonstrated yet again why we are one of the world’s favorite museums. To celebrate, we reopened our central exhibition, the Boeing Milestones of Flight Hall after an extensive redesign. This wasn’t the only highlight of 2016. We acquired new artifacts, made new discoveries on our most popular objects, and helped unlock the mysteries of the planet Mercury. We’ve had a great 40 years, and it’s only the beginning.