Apollo 11 Apollo 11. The initial crew assignment of Commander Neil Armstrong, Command Module Pilot (CMP) Jim Lovell, and Lunar Module Pilot (LMP) Buzz Aldrin on the backup crew for Apollo 9 was officially announced on November 20, 1967. Lovell and Aldrin had previously flown together as the crew of Gemini 12. Due to design and manufacturing delays in the LM, Apollo 8 and Apollo 9 swapped prime and backup crews, and Armstrong's crew became the backup for Apollo 8. Based on the normal crew rotation scheme, Armstrong was then expected to command Apollo 11. There would be one change. Michael Collins,
Apollo 11 missing tapes station feeds showing SSTV video of Armstrong's descent and first steps surfaced through John Sarkissian's efforts. Highlights of this fully enhanced video were shown to the public for the first time at the Australian Geographic Society Awards on October 6, 2010, where Buzz Aldrin was the guest of honor. Apollo 11 missing tapes The Apollo 11 missing tapes were those that were recorded from Apollo 11's slow-scan television (SSTV) telecast in its raw format on telemetry data tape at the time of the first moon landing in 1969 and subsequently lost. The data tapes were recorded as a backup in