Soviet dreams: the story of the Russian space programme

Iraklii Toidze, In the name of peace, 1959. c. The Memorial Museum of Cosmonautics

Zvezda space suit made by SOKOL used by Helen Sharman during the space flight on board the SOYUZ-TM-12 and MIR spacecraft in May 1991. Space suit model number KV-2 No. 167. Courtesy Science Museum SSPL

Taktika pencils used by Alexei Leonov on board Voskhod 2 spacecraft, 1965. Courtesy Museum of the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Centre

Yuon K. New Planet. Courtesy of The State Tretyakov Gallery

Boris Staris, The fairy tale became truth, 1961. Published by The Young Guard (Molodaya Gvardia), Photo Memorial Museum of Cosmonautics. Courtesy unknown

Konstantin Tsiolkovsky Album of Cosmic Journeys, 1932. Courtesy of The Archive of the Russian Academy of Sciences

‘Be proud, Soviet citizen, You’ve opened the road to the stars from Earth’, a poster by Michael Solovyov. .Courtesy unknown

The launch pad that fires astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS) today is the same one that took Yugi Gargarin into space for the first time in 1961. It is an enduring symbol of the success of the Soviet space programme. A remarkable new exhibition in the UK tells this story, from the Tsarist era to the launch of the world’s first artificial satellite Sputnik in 1957 to the ISS. Among the 150 exhibits include the five-metre tall LK-3 lunar lander from 1969. Designed to take a single cosmonaut to the Moon’s surface, the lander was declassified especially for this exhibition. Also part of the show are rocket pioneer Konstantin Tsiolkovsky’s extraordinary 1933 drawings of space flight and rare Soviet posters which fixed the image of the Cosmonaut.

• Cosmonauts: Birth of the Space Age runs at the Science Museum in London until March 13. For more information visit www.sciencemuseum.org.uk