A groundbreaking ceremony was held on Thursday for what can be described as “The Hall of Fame of Rocketry.”

State and local officials were in attendance to celebrate the planned expansion and reconfiguration of the U.S. Space and Rocket Center’s (USSRC) Rocket Park, which has stood since 1996.

“We are pleased to officially begin the important work of returning our collection of historic rockets to Rocket Park,” said Dr. Kimberly Robinson, CEO and executive director of the U.S. Space & Rocket Center. “These vehicles trace the origins of Huntsville’s past and current role in rocketry, and this project is a cornerstone as we update and renew our campus for future generations to come.”

The $7.9 million project will preserve important Huntsville history for decades to come so that future generations can admire these rockets up close.

A large crowd gathered at the groundbreaking for the USSRC’s Rocket Park on Thursday afternoon

The rockets featured at the new location will include a full-scale replica of the engine section of NASA’s newest moon rocket, along with the center’s collection of Redstone rockets that were crucial in launching the first astronauts to the moon with the Saturn I and Saturn V.

Rick Chappell, a former NASA astronaut and associate director for science at Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, gave his remarks as to why the new park is so important.

“Humans have been on Earth for about 200,000 years,” Chappell said. “And we get to live in the few decades in which the rockets, the machines, the spacecraft have been made and allow humans to leave the earth and live off the earth and go to the moon, and hopefully soon to other planets. And the rockets that are here were built by space explorers who came to Huntsville from all over the world. It just started with almost nobody here. And these folks came, and they have made what we now find.”

In addition to the collection of rockets, the renewed Rocket Park will also include a new amphitheater for educational and community events, the Marshall Retirees Association’s Space Exploration Memorial and additional green spaces.

A new section of the Rocket Park will also aim to recognize and honor the thousands of people whose work at the Marshall Space Flight Center and at other local Huntsville companies made the U.S. space program possible.

There are also plans for an interactive exhibit to be built next to the Space Exploration Memorial where visiting guests can search names found on the monument and learn more about that person’s specific contributions to the advancement of spaceflight.

The new Rocket Park, along with the recently opened Space Camp Operations Center, are just two parts of an ongoing renewal of the Space and Rocket Center campus.

The U.S. Space & Rocket Center, a Smithsonian Affiliate, includes the Davidson Center for Space Exploration, which displays one of three remaining Saturn V rockets and the world’s only vertical mockup of the moon rocket. The rocket center is the official visitor center for Marshall Space Flight Center and is home to U.S. Space Camp.

For more information, please visit www.rocketcenter.com.