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
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