JODRELL Bank can claim to have played a crucial role in recording man’s first steps on the moon. Next Tuesday (July 21), the world marks the 40th anniversary of Neil Armstrong’s historic walk and immortal words.

And the Express has taken a look at several momentous occasions when the Lovell telescope turned its attention towards the 2,160 mile-wide rock forever orbiting the earth.

During the Cold War era, Jodrell Bank found itself tracking both sides, Americans and Soviets, on moon orbits at various times.

The Lovell Telescope‘s first significant act of the "Space Race" was, in October 1957, to monitor the carrier rocket of Sputnik I, the world’s first artificial satellite, launched by the Soviets.

Sir Bernard Lovell and his crack team of scientists and astronomers also tracked Sputnik 2 in the same year, while it was carrying Russian spacedog Laika.

At this time, Jodrell also helped the US Air Force in Project Able, the forerunner of the subsequently historic Apollo missions – in their attempts to send rockets to the Moon.

And in 1959, there was yet more help for the Russians at their request, as scientists at the Lower Withington site tracked the Soviet Luna 2 mission, which was the first rocket to ever reach the moon.

One month later, in October 1959, Jodrell received a signal from Lunik 3, a Soviet rocket, which became the first to ever successfully photograph the "far side of the moon".

A new decade saw the observatory swinging into action once more by sending control signals to NASA’s Pioneer V deep space probe in 1960.

But it was six years later that Jodrell first took part in a truly monumental moon mission – and one with an astonishing twist involving a tabloid newspaper and an example of true English ingenuity.

Jodrell’s scientists from the depths of Cheshire had begun picking up signals from space which would turn out to be the first-ever pictures sent from the surface of the moon.

They were eavesdropping on a transmission from Soviet spacecraft Luna 9 as it sent coded signals back to earth, and realised these were of the type used in early fax machines.

As a result, a fax machine was borrowed from the Daily Express offices in Manchester and hooked up to a Jodrell telescope. Amazingly, out came a picture of the moon’s crater-covered surface. The instantly world-famous photo (pictured) appeared in British newspapers the next day, before anyone in Moscow had even seen it. Jodrell Bank had scooped the Russians! It was Soviet space tracking away from the moon that occurred in 1967, when Jodrell followed the Venera 4 – the first spacecraft to enter the atmosphere of another planet (Venus).

Of course, the moon was to take centre stage again two years later – the 40th anniversary of which takes place next Tuesday (July 21, 1969).

And Jodrell Bank was right at the centre of the historic events that day. Because as NASA was attempting to put Neil Armstrong’s Eagle Lander on the moon, little known at the time the Russians also had a craft in space – and Jodrell was independently tracking both.The Russian spacecraft Luna 15 was unmanned but was orbiting the moon the day of the NASA landing – showing just how close the space race was (the Russians had in fact been ahead of the Americans for several years).

Jodrell scientists actually traced what is perhaps the space race’s least known major event. They watched as Luna 15 crashlanded on the moon’s surface at 3.50pm on July 21, just hours before the Americans finished their own landing and left.

Jodrell scientists ultimately had provided independent evidence that the Americans did actually walk on the moon – a global event that remains unique.

"It is clearly capturing imaginations once more, as Jodrell Bank Visitors Centre’s "Moonbounce" event this Sunday (July 19) to mark the 40th anniversary, is sold out.