This summer the Rocket Tower at the award winning National Space Centre will be lifting off to new heights as the most exciting development in the Centre’s nine year history launches.

Space Race will coincide with the leading Leicester tourist attraction welcoming over 2million visitors through its doors and is the culmination of over two years of work to create a new experience that will take visitors on an amazing journey through the imagination of man and onto surface of the moon.

One of the highlights of the new exhibition will be a canine high-altitude partial pressure suit for use in sub-orbital biological research flights.

Orbital and sub-orbital tests with animals started in the 1950s and continued up to 25 March 1961, when the successful return of the life-size mannequin "Ivan Ivanovich" and his canine crewmate Zvezdochka gave Yuri Gagarin the green light for the first manned spaceflight on 14 April 1961.
 

In the first series of tests, the dogs were launched in pressurized cabins up to an altitude of 100 km., with the cabin and dog gently parachuted to the ground. The second series of launches required full or partial pressure suits, such as the one about to go on display at the National Space Centre.

This will be the only suit of its kind on display any where in the world and visitors to the National Space Centre will be able to see it for the first time when Space Race launches on 17 July 2010.

The creation of three brand new interactive floors within the iconic Rocket Tower will make a visit to the National Space Centre a must for this summer holiday period.