Australia’s role

Many Australian locations, organisations and people were involved in making Apollo 11 a success seen around the world.

 

Buzz Aldrin photographed by Neil Armstrong.

Live from the Moon

600 million people saw those grainy black and white TV images of humanity's first trip to the Moon. Getting them to Earth took some doing.

Western half of Australia from Perth to Port Darwin, as seen from the Gemini-11 spacecraft on 14 Sept. 1966.

Why Australia?

Geography and politics played a role in NASA establishing a network of tracking stations across Australia.

Neil Armstrong practises using the specially built Apollo 11 TV camera before the mission.

NASA decides to televise

Think your TV reception is bad? Try transmitting a weak TV signal 384,000 kilometres to Earth using the same power as two LED lights.

The famous wind storm on the Parkes horizon during Apollo 11. This is the only known photograph of the storm ever taken.

“One giant leap”

Severe wind pushed CSIRO Parkes's radio telescope past its safety limits, but staff kept relaying the signal as the world looked on.