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
Spacecraft call signs Gemini 4, NASA used the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center to house the flight control center, and its call sign was Houston, chosen for its location. This practice continues to this day. The practice of using the mission number continued through the first two flights of the Project Apollo manned lunar landing program, Apollo 7 and Apollo 8. But all remaining Apollo missions included two manned spacecraft (Command/Service Module (CSM) and Lunar Module (LM)) on each flight, which required the use of separate call signs for each vehicle when they flew independently of each other. For this reason, NASA permitted