NASA Max Power Event and local museums

In November 2026, Kennedy Space Center hosts a new event bringing aviation and spaceflight together on one of the most historically significant aerospace sites in the world.

NASA MAX POWER takes place over the weekend of 7–8 November and forms part of America's 250th anniversary celebrations. Rather than being a conventional air show, the event spreads across Kennedy Space Center and combines military and NASA aviation, future aerospace technology, spaceflight hardware and access to the story of America's space programme.

For aviation enthusiasts there is one particularly unusual attraction. The flying display takes place at Kennedy's Launch and Landing Facility, the former Shuttle Landing Facility, the runway constructed for returning Space Shuttles.

For decades this was part of the operational heart of the Shuttle programme. In November it becomes the setting for Salute to America in Space, with the United States Air Force Thunderbirds already confirmed alongside further military, NASA and civilian participation which will be announced as the event develops.

Our Saturday will be devoted to the aviation side of MAX POWER. Quite apart from the aircraft, simply being on this particular piece of Kennedy Space Center should be memorable. The long runway beneath us was once where Shuttle missions ended after days or weeks in orbit, with orbiters including Columbia, Challenger, Discovery, Atlantis and Endeavour forming part of its history.

Sunday approaches MAX POWER from a completely different direction..! We will spend the day exploring Kennedy Space Center and the wider NASA programme. The Visitor Complex brings together the pioneering Mercury, Gemini and Apollo eras, the Space Shuttle years and today's return towards the Moon and deep-space exploration.

A particular highlight is Space Shuttle Atlantis, displayed in a configuration intended to show the orbiter as it appeared in space. Atlantis flew 33 missions between 1985 and 2011 and completed the final flight of the Space Shuttle programme.

The Kennedy bus tour takes visitors behind the public entrance and towards the historic launch area, including the Apollo/Saturn V Center. Here the huge Saturn V provides an extraordinary reminder of the scale of the Apollo programme and the engineering required to take astronauts to the Moon.

NASA says the MAX POWER weekend will add specialist talks, astronaut appearances, spaceflight hardware, technology demonstrations and additional behind-the-scenes experiences. A second section, presented by UP.Summit, will look towards the future of transportation, including autonomous vehicles, drones and emerging aircraft technology.

We are deliberately not planning two identical days at an air show. Saturday is primarily about aircraft and photography; Sunday is about NASA, spacecraft, engineering and the wider MAX POWER experience.

This weekend will be framed by two additional aviation and space visits to well known centres of aviation heritage.

Titusville's Valiant Air Command Warbird Museum is particularly appropriate. Located at Space Coast Regional Airport, its collection ranges across historic military aviation, the Second World War, Vietnam and the Cold War. Unlike a large national museum, this is a working enthusiast organisation where restoration and preservation are very much part of the experience. We will seek to arrange our visit directly with the museum as a group rather than simply turn up as individual visitors.
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We are also investigating a special visit to Fantasy of Flight, Kermit Weeks' celebrated aircraft collection in Polk City. Because the museum currently follows a restricted seasonal opening pattern, this will only be added if suitable access can be confirmed.

Before returning home we plan to spend some time with the human story behind Kennedy at Titusville's American Space Museum.

It is much smaller than Kennedy Space Center, but that is precisely its appeal. The museum preserves equipment, memorabilia and stories associated with the engineers, technicians and other people whose work made the American space programme possible. Much of the collection has come directly from former space-programme workers.

Together, the visits create a compact tour covering an unusually broad sweep of aerospace history: warbirds, modern military aviation, the Space Shuttle, Apollo, today's NASA and some of the technologies likely to shape aviation in future. And right at its centre is something we have never previously been able to offer: photographing an air show from the historic Shuttle runway at Kennedy Space Center.