The first installment of a more extensive project, the video includes 15 restored key moments from the mission led by astronauts Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins, the US space agency said.

The video was only brought back to life after it was rediscovered following an extensive three-year search through some 45,000 video cassettes in NASA's analog archives.

Engineer Richard Nafzger, in charge of the restoration project, had to follow several different leads to track down the full images, he told a press conference.

His search finally led him to the CBS studios in Houston, Texas, where he discovered some good quality images which had been broadcast live at the time by NASA to the network. He also recovered copies which had been taped in Australia.

Hollywood's Lowry Digital was then able to restore "15 scenes representing the most significant moments of the three and a half hours that Armstrong and Aldrin spent on the lunar surface," NASA said in a statement.

Apollo 11 blasted off towards the moon on July 16, 1969, and Armstrong first stepped out on the lunar surface four days later on July 20, making history as the first man to walk on the moon. He was followed by Aldrin.

But "Neil Armstrong's first step was the most degraded video we had to work with," said Mike Inchalik, head of Lowry Digital.

Watching the restored video, the viewer can see cleaner, sharper and more detailed images of the very first steps on the lunar surface.

Due to the way in which Armstrong and Aldrin's walk was filmed -- with a video camera featuring a non-standard format that could not be broadcast directly -- NASA used a scan converter to adapt the images to the US television standard.

Tracking stations at the time used microwave links, satellites, and AT and T analog landlines to Mission Control in Houston. That led to downgraded original images, NASA says.

"The restoration is ongoing, and may produce even better video," said Nafzger, of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, anticipating a September release for the full package.

NASA has planned a series of events marking Monday's 40th anniversary of the historic moonwalk, during which astronaut Collins was left orbiting the moon as the command module pilot while Armstrong and Aldrin took their walk.

Collins said in a statement released by NASA on its website Wednesday that he did not feel abandoned during his lonely orbit.

"I know that I would be a liar or a fool if I said that I have the best of the three Apollo 11 seats, but I can say with truth and equanimity that I am perfectly satisfied with the one I have," he said.

But he admits to a sense of isolation as radio contact with Earth was cut off as he disappeared alone in the module behind the moon.

"I am alone now, truly alone and absolutely isolated from any known life. I am it," he wrote.

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