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 command and service module as part of the international Apollo–Soyuz Test Project. When NASA awarded the initial Apollo contract to North American Aviation on November 28, 1961, it was still assumed the lunar landing would be achieved by direct ascent rather than by lunar orbit rendezvous. Therefore, design proceeded without a means of docking the command module to a lunar excursion module (LEM). But the change to lunar orbit rendezvous, plus several technical obstacles encountered in some subsystems (such as environmental control), soon made it clear that substantial redesign would be required. In 1963, NASA decided the most efficient way to keep the program