Essex-class aircraft carrier and "Princeton" recovered the second crew to orbit the Moon, aboard Apollo 10, in May 1969. "Hornet" rejoined the program and recovered the astronauts from the first two moon landing missions, Apollo 11 in July 1969 and Apollo 12 in November. The first steps on Earth of returning astronauts Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Mike Collins, are marked on her hangar deck, as part of her Apollo program exhibit. The three subsequent missions utilized amphibious assault ships as support vessels; however, "Ticonderoga" recovered the astronauts of the last two moon missions, Apollo 16 and Apollo 17 in April and December
Third-party evidence for Apollo Moon landings of the Moon landing really is. The NASA-independent "Observatoire de la Côte d'Azur", McDonald, Apache Point, and Haleakalā observatories regularly use the Apollo LRRR. Lick Observatory attempted to detect from Apollo 11's retroreflector while Armstrong and Aldrin were still on the Moon but did not succeed until August 1, 1969. The Apollo 14 astronauts deployed a retroreflector on February 5, 1971, and McDonald Observatory detected it the same day. The Apollo 15 retroreflector was deployed on July 31, 1971, and was detected by McDonald Observatory within a few days. The image on the left shows what is considered some of