National Space Centre National Space Centre The National Space Centre is a museum and educational resource covering the fields of space science and astronomy, along with a space research programme in partnership with the University of Leicester. It is located on the north side the city of Leicester, England, next to the River Soar. Many of the exhibits, including upright rockets, are housed in a tower with minimal steel supports and a semi-transparent cladding of ETFE 'pillows' which has become one of Leicester's most recognisable landmarks. The building was designed by Nicholas Grimshaw, and it opened to the public on 30 June 2001.
University of Leicester Theory of Relativity – that black holes exist and are common in the universe. It is a founding partner of the £52 million National Space Centre. Leicester is one of a small number of universities to have won the prestigious Queen's Anniversary Prize for Higher Education on more than one occasion: in 1994 for physics & astronomy and again in 2002 for genetics. The 2014 Research Excellence Framework (REF) exercise for the School of Archaeology and Ancient History, 74% of research activity, including 100% of its Research Environment, was classed as 'world-leading' or 'internationally excellent', ranking it 6th among UK