A lot of the big announcements for Disney parks at the D23 Expo were predicted in advance, and while it was exciting when so many of those grand plans were confirmed, the true surprises were some most exhilarating. Maybe others knew an update to Mission: SPACE was coming to Epcot, but I certainly hadn’t heard about it.
Mission: SPACE has been down for “refurbishment” since early June, but it turns out both the Orange and Green missions were being completely reimagined with the help of Industrial Light and Magic, ILM.
The Orange, intense mission will still be a mission to Mars, but with a sharper, updated film, which it has really needed. The Green mission will be entirely new. It will be a tour orbiting Earth that will make the attraction more accessible to younger kids. It’s not clear yet whether the height requirement for the Green mission will be lower, but we should know soon as the attraction is scheduled to reopen sometime in August.
In addition to updating the attraction, the area surrounding it will be expanded with a brand new space-themed restaurant adjacent to the attraction. It will be set above Earth and from the concept photos, it looks like it will quickly become a difficult dining reservation to get as the theming, to borrow a line from Tom Fitzgerald, a creative executive with Walt Disney Imagineering, it will be “out of this world.”
There’s no target date yet for the opening of the restaurant, but it seems likely that we’ll be making reservations before many of the new attractions are completed to Epcot in the coming years.
I can’t wait to try out both missions on the updated Mission: SPACE attraction and dine in space. I mean, it just looks so awesome. Are you as excited as we are about these changes?
