A space suit for canine adventurers is one of the highlights in a new exhibition at the National Space Centre in Leicester

One day you're sniffing a lamppost behind the Kremlin, the next you're an integral part of a top-secret programme sending dogs to boldly go where no dogs have gone before.The search criteria weren't strict. No particular breed was targeted, instead placid mongrels were rounded up from Moscow's streets. There was one stipulation however; the stray had to be female. That would ensure that designing the suit would be "simpler".

But simple it isn't. "It's a very strange-looking contraption," admits Kevin Yates, space communications manager at the National Space Centre in Leicester. "The clear helmet is shaped like a dog's head, with laces to tie it up like a giant boot around the body."

This canine high-altitude pressure suit was created by the Soviets in the late 50s at the height of the space race. Dogs were strapped into the nose of a rocket before being fired 80km up, then returning to earth by parachute. "After being released from their suits, film footage shows the dogs running around, excited to see their owners," says Yates, "whereas it'd scare the living daylights out of most people."

Alas, Laika, the mongrel who became the first animal to orbit Earth, died during that mission on 3 November 1957, but such tests continued up to March 1961, when the successful return of the life-size mannequin "Ivan Ivanovich" and a canine crewmate gave Yuri Gagarin the green light for the first manned spaceflight a month later.

This is believed to be the first suit of its kind to go on display in the UK. It is the standout feature in the epic Space Race exhibition that opens at the National Space Centre this weekend.