IT is the only music festival to be supported by the UK Space Agency.

And it is definitely the only event in the country to feature an art installation by Brian Eno beamed onto a 76m telescope used during the Space Race.

Suffice to say Bluedot Festival at Jodrell Bank, which opens tomorrow, is going to be different to your average summer music experience.

Where else would you find the likes of Underworld and Jean-Michel Jarre alongside talks by leading astrophysicists and a Mars Rover?

It is clear that festival director Ben Robinson and his team of 200 are reaching for the stars in more ways than one.

“Festivals have always been inspiring places to be,” he said.

“It’s where people from different walks of life come together to share experiences. What we really wanted to give people with Bluedot was a different experience rather than a bad head and a muddy tent.

“Maybe they’ll go home after finding something out about the cosmos, or themselves, that puts them in a different position.”

Other music highlights include Everything Everything, Public Service Broadcasting, Mercury Rev, Air and DJ Shadow.

Meanwhile, Prof Brian Cox and Robin Ince will be recording an episode of Radio 4’s The Infinite Monkey Cage at the festival. Music producers Jim Spencer and David Tolan will team up with Jodrell Bank astrophysicist Tim O’Brien to remix sounds from space.

And Moondust author Andrew Smith will be talking about his experience of tracking down every astronaut who walked on the moon between 1969 and 1972 and how if affected them.

But one of the most intriguing acts on the bill has to be the collaboration between an artist, a scientist, half of the band Spiritualized and the sound 40,000 bees. The show, called Be play One, is inspired by the plight of the honeybee.

“It’s a fascinating thing to have on the bill,” added Ben, whose company From The Fields also runs Kendal Calling.

“They listened to the sound of these bees and thought it was almost musical. They got together and started playing along to recordings of the bees figuring out the dynamics of what worked and what didn’t in terms of the instruments alongside it.

“That was what really wanted to do with Bluedot. We were looking at what we could do which was different and new and crossed over into technology and science.

“We’ve run Kendal Calling for 10 years so we’re curators of festivals and experiences. With Kendal Calling it’s a multitude of different art forms now as well as the music.”

It also helped that Ben was in close contact with one of the UK’s most famous observatories.

From The Fields previously ran a series of music events called Live From Jodrell Bank.

This time it is on a much bigger scale with 6,000 people expected over three days.

There will be four stages with more than 150 music artists and about 200 scientists and speakers.

Ben, 35, said: “Bluedot has been inspired by the history of the site and being awestruck by what is achieved on a daily basis there.

“I think that was interesting thing. From doing festivals, I’ve seen so many headline bands and superstars and they were kind of dwarfed at points by how far into space Jodrell was looking, the data they were receiving and the influence that has on the whole planet.

“What we’ve also tried to introduce is more of an audio visual element to the music to push the boundaries of what you can do on shows.

In a time of uncertainty for the UK, Ben also hopes the name of Cheshire’s new festival inspires people too.

It refers to a speech by NASA scientist Carl Sagan in 1994 when he coined the phrase ‘pale blue dot’ to refer to our home planet.

“Today of all days it’s really important we see ourselves as one people and one planet and celebrate the great things that humans are doing together,” he added.

Bluedot Festival, tomorrow until Sunday, Jodrell Bank. Details from discoverbluedot.com