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 spacecraft feasibility study results, President John F. Kennedy proposed the Moon landing objective to the US Congress, giving the Apollo program a clear focus and sense of urgency. NASA turned its focus to what relevant data could be mined from the proposals (abandoning the mission module), and launched another competition for the hardware procurement phase, fixing the reentry module configuration to the conical shape designed by Maxime Faget. NASA awarded the contract for the Apollo Command/Service Module (CSM) to North American Aviation on November 28, 1961, when it was still assumed the lunar landing would be achieved by direct descent or Earth orbit