Apollo 11 Apollo 11 Apollo 11 was the spaceflight that landed the first two people on the Moon. Commander Neil Armstrong and Lunar Module Pilot Buzz Aldrin, both American, landed the lunar module "Eagle" on July 20, 1969, at 20:17 UTC. Armstrong became the first person to step onto the lunar surface six hours after landing on July 21 at 02:56:15 UTC; Aldrin joined him about 20 minutes later. They spent about two and a quarter hours together outside the spacecraft, and collected of lunar material to bring back to Earth. Command Module Pilot Michael Collins piloted the command module "Columbia" alone
Apollo 8 CMP, and Buzz Aldrin as LMP for the third crewed Apollo flight was officially announced at the same time as the prime crew. When Lovell was reassigned to the prime crew, Aldrin was moved to CMP, and Fred Haise was brought in as backup LMP. Armstrong would later command Apollo 11, with Aldrin as LMP and Collins as CMP. Haise served on the backup crew of Apollo 11 as LMP and flew on Apollo 13 as LMP. During Projects Mercury and Gemini, each mission had a prime and a backup crew. For Apollo, a third crew of astronauts was added,