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• The Lovell Telescope
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• History of Jodrell Bank
  • 1945-1950 Early History
  • 1951-1957 Building the MK I
  • 1957-1960s Space Tracking
  • 1964 The MK II Telescope
  • 1970 The MKIA Upgrade
  • 1976 MTRLI
  • 1990s MERLIN
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Jodrell Bank's role in early space tracking activities

Sven Grahn has written an extensive article on Jodrell Bank's role in early space tracking activities; this is reproduced here with his permission. The article is divided into two parts: part 1 and part 2. The table of contents is below.

• A strange new world
• The creation of the telescope and the observatory
• How Jodrell Bank was drawn into space tracking
• Space tracking exploits by Jodrell Bank
  
  • The Able program
  • The U.S. Army/JPL lunar probes
  • Supporting the Able project again
  • The early Soviet Luna probes
    
    • Luna 1 - whizzing past the moon - did anyone hear it?
    • Luna 2 - the first spacecraft to reach another celestial body
    • Luna 3 - the first view of the moon's far side
• References and Notes

• Tracking Soviet Interplanetary probes
  
  • Venera-1
  • Mars-1
  • Zond 1 and 2
  • Venera 4 - Jodrell Bank tracks the first in a series of instrumented entries in the atmosphere of another planet
• Ranger tracking
• Luna 4-14, the second generation Soviet lunar probes
  
  • Luna 4,5,6,7,8 - trying again and again to land on the moon
  • Luna 9 - the first landing on the moon
  • Luna 10, 11, and 12 - shifting the focus to lunar orbit
  • Luna 13 and 14
• Tests of a Soviet piloted circumlunar spacecraft - Zond 4-8
  
  • Launches in 1967
  • Zond 4 and the launch attempt in April 1968
  • Zond 5 - a strange Soviet game of hide-and-seek and voices from the sky
  • Zond 6 - a dress rehearsal that went wrong?
  • Zond 7
• Luna 15-24
• Jodrell Bank and public opinion about the space race
• References and Notes