Timeline of Jodrell Bank Observatory

1950s

1950, August — The transit telescope is used to make the first detection of radio waves from the nearby Andromeda Galaxy.^[5]^[6]
1950 — Charles Husband presents first drawings of the proposed giant, fully steerable radio telescope.^[7]
1952, September — Construction of the Mark I telescope begins.^[8]
1957, October — The Mark I telescope becomes operational. It tracks the carrier rocket of Sputnik 1; the only telescope in the West able to do so.^[9]^[10]

1960s

1960, May — Lord Nuffield pays the remaining debt on the Mark I and the observatory is renamed the Nuffield Radio Astronomy Laboratories.^[11]
1962 — As part of a radio-linked interferometer, the Mark I identifies a new class of compact radio sources, later recognised as quasars.^[12]
1962 — Jodrell Bank radio telescope is mentioned in the science fiction novel A for Andromeda by Fred Hoyle and John Elliot.
1964 — The Mark II telescope is completed.^[13]
1966 — The Mark I receives pictures from Luna 9, the first spacecraft to make a soft landing on the Moon.^[14]
1966 — The Mark III telescope is completed.^[15]
1968 — The Mark I confirms the existence of pulsars.^[16]
1968 — The Mark I took part in the first transatlantic VLBI experiment in 1968, with other telescopes being those at Algonquin and Penticton in Canada.^[17]
1969 — The Mark I is used for the first time in a VLBI observation, with the Arecibo radio telescope in 1969.^[12]

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1970s

1970–1971 — The Mark I is repaired and upgraded; it is renamed to the Mark IA.^[15]
1972–1973 — The Mark I carries out a survey of radio sources; amongst these sources was the first gravitational lens, which was confirmed optically in 1979.^[18]
1976, January — storms bring winds of around 90 mph which almost destroy the telescope. Bracing girders are added.^[19]

1980s

1980 — The Mark IA is used as part of the new MERLIN array.^[12]
1982 — The 42 ft telescope is built, to replace the 50 ft.^{[citation needed]}
1986 — The first pulsar in a globular cluster is discovered.^[12]
1986 — The Mark II telescope is given a new surface that is accurate to 1/3 mm.^[13]
1987 — The Mark IA is renamed the Lovell Telescope after Bernard Lovell.^[20]

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1990s

1990 — The new 32 m Cambridge telescope at Mullard Radio Astronomy Observatory is added to the MERLIN array.^[12]
1992 — The MERLIN array becomes a national facility.^[12]
1993 — At the request of NASA, the Lovell Telescope searches for the Mars Observer spacecraft.^[21]
1998 — The Lovell Telescope begins participation with the SETI Project Phoenix^[22]^[23]

2000s

2000, February — The Lovell Telescope searches for NASA's Mars Polar Lander.^[24]
2000 — Placebo recorded the video for The Bitter End at Jodrell Bank.^{[citation needed]}
2000–2002 — The Lovell Telescope is resurfaced, increasing its sensitivity at 5 GHz by a factor of five.^{[citation needed]}
2003, December — The Lovell Telescope searches for the Beagle 2 lander on Mars.^{[citation needed]}
2004, January — Astronomers from Jodrell Bank, Australia, Italy and the U.S. discover the first known double pulsar.^{[citation needed]}
2004 — Minor scenes for the film of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy are filmed at Jodrell Bank.^{[citation needed]}
2005, February — Astronomers using the Lovell Telescope discovered a galaxy that appears to be made almost entirely of dark matter.^[25]
2005, March — Jodrell Bank becomes the centre of the World's largest scale model of the Solar System as part of the Spaced Out project.^[26]
2006, September — Jodrell Bank wins the BBC's online competition to find the UK's greatest "Unsung Landmark".^[21]

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1930s