As movie props go there are few as iconic as the X-Wing, and one will be available to see at close quarters as the Chantilly location of the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum will be welcoming Poe Dameron’s T-70 X-Wing from The Rise of Skywalker, on loan from Lucasfilm.
An X-Wing Starfighter has arrived from a galaxy far, far away at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum’s Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Virginia.
Last seen in 2019’s Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, the full-sized fictional spacecraft is now on display with the museum reopening to the public for the first time in more than five months due to the pandemic.
The X-Wing is currently undergoing conservation work in the museum’s restoration hangar. This is in preparation of being sent downtown, where it will hang at the soon-to-be-newly-renovated Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum in late 2022.
“We know that this generation of aerospace engineers… many of them grew up Star Wars fans,” Margaret Weitekamp, head of the museum’s space history department, tells DCist/WAMU about why the museum is excited about displaying this piece of Star Wars lore. “There are real ways in which the vision of Star Wars has actually played a really important part in [their] imagination for space flight.”
The vehicle is on long-term loan from Lucasfilm with the museum appropriately making the announcement yesterday on May 4, known as Star Wars Day (“May the 4th Be With You”).
The X-Wing, with its 37-foot wingspan, may look like something that has actually gone to space, but it’s a film prop.
