Visitors often arrive expecting the sector to be visible, on the model of a space agency visitor centre elsewhere. It is not. The institutions are here in force; what they publish for the public is narrow, and it is better to know that before building an afternoon around it.
This guide states what each institution publishes about itself and marks the rest as unavailable.
What ISRO publishes, which is addresses
The Department of Space secretariat and ISRO headquarters are at Antariksh Bhavan, New BEL Road, Bengaluru 560 231.
The ISRO Telemetry, Tracking and Command Network is at Plot 12 and 13, 3rd Main, 2nd Phase, Peenya Industrial Area, Bengaluru 560 058, currently marking fifty years of tracking.
The U R Rao Satellite Centre, formerly the ISRO Satellite Centre, is on Old Airport Road at Vimanapura, and is described as the lead centre for building satellites, having produced over 100 since inception. Its facilities include the ISRO Satellite Integration and Test Establishment, a 6.5 metre thermo-vacuum chamber, 29-tonne vibration equipment and an acoustic test facility, with the Laboratory for Electro-Optics Systems at Peenya.
The Liquid Propulsion Systems Centre is headquartered in Kerala, not Bengaluru; its Bengaluru unit on 80 Ft Road, HAL 2nd Stage, designs satellite propulsion systems and develops transducers and sensors.
The HAL museum, which publishes everything
Hindustan Aeronautics Limited's Heritage Centre and Aerospace Museum, established in 2001 and described by the company as the first of its kind in India, is the one institution here that documents itself fully.
It sits on four acres at the intersection of HAL Old Airport Road and Basavanagar Road, about 17 kilometres from Bengaluru City railway station. It opens 9am to 5pm every day of the year, with ticketing closing at 4:30pm, and encourages cashless payment.
| Category | Entry |
|---|---|
| Adult | Rs 120 |
| Children up to 16 | Rs 50 |
| HAL and armed services employees and families, retired HAL staff | Rs 50 |
| Student groups with ID, and accompanying staff | Rs 50 |
| Children up to 3 | Free |
| Physically handicapped, seniors over 70 | Free |
| Still camera | Rs 100 |
| Video camera | Rs 200 |
| Mobile camera | Free |
The collection is substantial. Indoors, photographs tracing aviation by decade from the 1940s, a Hall of Fame, motorised cross-sections of aero engines, and real Garrett, Adour and Orpheus engines, plus an ejection seat with parachute and the Pushpak and Basant aircraft. Outdoors, the Marut, MiG-21, HT-2, Kiran, Canberra, Ajeet and the Lakshya pilotless target aircraft.
There is also an air traffic control radar with an L-band surveillance unit of 200 nautical mile range rotating at three to four revolutions per minute on 1250 to 1350 megahertz, a meteorological radar, a PSLV model with heat shield, motion simulators, an aerospace library, a souvenir shop and a cafeteria, with rose, orchid and herbal gardens and a sustainability park of working solar, biogas and hybrid windmill models.
The Visvesvaraya museum
A constituent unit of the National Council of Science Museums under the Ministry of Culture, the Visvesvaraya Industrial and Technological Museum on Kasturba Road was opened by Jawaharlal Nehru on 14 July 1962 in memory of Sir M. Visvesvaraya.
It opens 9:30am to 6pm every day, closing only on Deepavali and Ganesha Chaturthi, and charges Rs 100 for anyone over the age of five.
Fourteen exhibition spaces are published: the Engine Hall, the ElectroTechnic Gallery opened in July 1965, a Fun Science Gallery opened in July 2025, a Space Technology Gallery, Biotechnology Gallery, the BEL Hall of Electronics, a Dinosaur Enclave, the Wright Brothers' Aeroplane, Science on a Sphere, a 3D Show, Science Park, Science for Kids, the Seed of Culture exhibition and the Mars Rover Opportunity. Shows include Taramandal, science demonstrations, sky observation and popular science lectures.
The Indian Institute of Science
IISc came into existence on 27 May 1909 in Bangalore following a vesting order of the Government of India, realised from Jamsetji Nusserwanji Tata's bequest with the support of Mysore State, and opened to twenty-four students in 1911. It became a deemed university in 1958.
Its published visiting policy is institutional rather than touristic. Student groups from colleges and universities may visit on working Fridays between 2:30 and 5:00pm, with prior permission applied for at least fifteen days in advance, naming a specific Friday and the department to be visited, through the Public Relations Officer. Permission is communicated by email only.
There is no museum, archive or permanent exhibition open to the public. The campus is roughly 7 kilometres from the City railway station, under 2 from Yeshwantpur and 35 from the airport.
The planetarium
The Jawaharlal Nehru Planetarium, administered by the Bangalore Association for Science Education, is about 2 kilometres from the city railway station by its own description. Its published shows are Our Solar System at 12:30pm in English and 2:30pm in Kannada, and Exploring The Universe at 4:30pm in English and 3:30pm in Kannada. It also runs a Science in Action exhibition and programmes including Kaapi With Kuriosity, lectures and eclipse observation.
The industry itself
Software Technology Parks of India, under the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, runs STPI-Bengaluru and describes itself as having been the backbone of Karnataka's software and hardware industry for three decades, enabling Bengaluru to emerge as one of the largest information technology clusters globally.
It states that in FY 2020-21, STPI-registered units under its Bengaluru jurisdiction contributed Rs 2.14 lakh crore in IT, ITeS and electronics hardware exports. It has been a data communication service provider since 1993, and runs the AIC STPINEXT centre of excellence and a SMART Lab for testing electronic hardware set up with the Karnataka government.
That figure is the only official measure of the sector's Bengaluru scale obtained for this guide, and it is five years old. For the state-level picture behind it, see how southern states compare on income.
What this guide does not cover
No ISRO visitor facility is described because none is published.
The planetarium's opening hours, ticket prices, closed days and full address are absent; only its show times appear on any reachable official page.
Ticket prices at the Visvesvaraya museum for anything other than general admission are not published and are not estimated.
No Karnataka government figure for the state's share of India's IT exports or its number of IT companies is given. Every karnataka.gov.in host was unreachable for this guide.
Electronics City and Whitefield are not described and no area figure is given for either. The Karnataka Industrial Areas Development Board's old site now only redirects to a state domain that could not be reached.
The Raman Research Institute is not covered, and is a separate body from the planetarium, which its own site attributes to the Bangalore Association for Science Education.
IISc's own history page gives two different years for C. V. Raman becoming its first Indian director, so that date is omitted here.
Every institution page above except one carries no publication date. Hours and prices drift; confirm before travelling across the city.