It was discovered on 1 July 1933, by Soviet–Russian astronomer Grigory Neujmin at Simeiz Observatory, on the Crimean peninsula.

[2] Tsiolkovskaja is a member of the Flora family, a large group of stony S-type asteroids.

It orbits the Sun in the inner main-belt at a distance of 1.9–2.6 AU once every 3 years and 4 months (1,217 days).

They gave a concurring, well-defined rotation period between 6.700 and 6.737 hours with a brightness variation of 0.10–0.40 in magnitude.

[3][4][6][7][8] This minor planet was named in honor of Soviet–Russian rocket scientist Konstantin Tsiolkovsky (1857–1935), considered to be one of the founding fathers of rocketry and astronautics and instrumental to the success of the Soviet space program.