Parents and other adults can now go on a star trek as Keighley’s pioneering science centre opens to the public.

The STAR Centre will open up on special days for family groups, local businesses and tourists.

They will boldly go where thousands of Keighley schoolchildren have been going for several years.

They will be able to rocket into space, see the stars, drive robots and run into interstellar missions.

The STAR Centre is part of the recently-opened £35 million Keighley Campus of Leeds City College. It contains a planetarium and a mock-up of a spaceship, mission control, lunar landscape and space lab.

It is fully booked on weekdays by schools, but it is planned to open the centre to the wider community at weekends and evenings.

This is partly to generate income, following the end of several years’ funding from Yorkshire Forward. In the long-term the college is looking at opening its entire ground-floor regularly on Saturday mornings. Parents could send their children to the STAR Centre then have their hair done, eat in the refectory and use the gym.

The STAR Centre will be open to local people for the first time on March 20 as part of Keighley’s Go Free Day.

Vintage buses will take people around other attractions around the area.

Centre manager Ray Barber said: “With all the new technological developments on-site now, we are hoping its appeal will take off further to become a regional visitor attraction.”

The STAR Centre will be working with other organisations, including Keighley Town Council and the Keighley and Worth Valley Railway.

More details are available from starcentre.org.uk or contact 01535 685167.