Lost tapes reveal how Jodrell Bank snooped on Space Race secrets Russian spacecraft tracked 50 years ago
DETAILS of the important role Jodrell Bank played in the Space Race have been revealed 50 years later thanks to the discovery of a long-lost recording.
In it amidst a gentle crackle and a series of bleeps, a clear, crisp voice rings out.
“This is Zond 6. This is the Russian probe Zond 6. November the fourteenth 1968. The time is 01:52 UT. The probe is about one hour’s travel away from the Moon.”
It’s the voice of Sir Bernard Lovell, the first director of Jodrell Bank, as he narrates the path of a Russian spacecraft on its return to Earth.
The Soviet mission was being tracked by Jodrell Bank’s huge Lovell Telescope.
Now the remarkable audio capturing this has been shared for the first time, after scientists found the recording at the famous observatory.
As cosmonauts in the Soviet Union worked to send Zond 6 into space, U.S. astronauts were frantically working to put a man on the moon before their Russian counterparts.
The Space Race between the two Cold War rivals saw the two nations sending satellites, unmanned aircraft and brave astronauts and cosmonauts into space through the sixties.
As they did, scientists here in England were able to intercept - and record - details of their missions from the quiet surroundings of the Cheshire observatory.
Professor Tim O’Brien, associate director of Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics, has been exploring the observatory’s archive for a new exhibition.
While searching through various artifacts he discovered a recording of the Zond 6 lunar mission. The USSR had launched the unmanned craft on November 10, 1968, to loop around the Moon and return to Earth safely.
“Amongst the many interesting documents in the archive, there are a number of audio recordings of the spacecraft signals picked up by the Lovell Telescope during this crucial period of human history,” Prof O’Brien says.
Although there was nobody on board, it was planned as a precursor to a crewed flight around the moon, racing to beat the American’s Apollo 8 whose launch was scheduled for December 1968.
Throughout the Space Race, the astronomers at Jodrell Bank, led by Sir Bernard Lovell, had tracked both American and Russian spacecraft. Zond 6 was no different.
In the newly released audio file, Sir Bernard narrates the flight of Zond 6, from November 13 to November 17, when the spacecraft returned to Earth.
The recording opens with the beeps of the telemetry being received from the spacecraft followed by Lovell’s voice and a voice speaking Russian.
A similar voice had been picked up by Jodrell Bank during the flight of Zond 5 in September 1968. It is thought to have been either a recorded message on the spacecraft, broadcast in order to test communications, or personnel on the ground relaying their voices via the spacecraft in training for a future crewed mission.
Prof O’Brien added: “I’d read about these voices but I’d never actually heard a recording or seen a transcript. I don’t speak Russian, so I asked Kostya, one of my colleagues here in the School of Physics and Astronomy, if he would translate.”
Professor Sir Kostya Novoselov, who shared the Nobel Prize in 2010 with Professor Sir Andre Geim for their work on graphene, was happy to help.
He provided a detailed transcript of what is thought to be simulated instrument readings.
“It was definitely great fun and an honour simultaneously to transcribe and translate these records,” he says.
“Touching this great piece of history is thrilling. You almost travel back in time to the era of great space exploration.”
Zond 6 flew around the moon on November 14, 1968, reaching a closest approach of 2,420km.
During its return to Earth, the spacecraft depressurised, killing the biological specimens on board - thought to be tortoises, worms and seeds. When the parachutes failed, Zond 6 crash landed, although photographs of the moon were retrieved from the wreckage.
The mission led to the Soviet Union delaying their crewed flight and, in December 1968, the Americans’ Apollo 8 became the first piloted circumlunar mission.
Though Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin had been first the man to orbit the earth, on April 12, 1961, the Americans finally managed to beat their rivals by landing Neil Armstrong on the moon in 1969.