Little West (lunar crater) Little West (lunar crater) Little West is a small crater (30-meter diameter) in Mare Tranquillitatis on the Moon, east of the Apollo 11 landing site known as Tranquility Base. The Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed the Lunar Module (LM) "Eagle" approximately 60 meters west of Little West Crater on July 20, 1969. This is the crater Neil Armstrong mentions during his final descent onto the lunar surface. The south-west rim of the crater marks the farthest point that either astronaut traveled from the lunar module during their time on the lunar surface for the Apollo 11
Apollo program 2007, the X Prize Foundation and Google announced the Google Lunar X Prize, to be awarded for a robotic lunar landing mission which transmits close-up images of the Apollo lunar modules and other artificial objects on the surface. In 2008, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency's SELENE probe observed evidence of the halo surrounding the Apollo 15 Lunar Module blast crater while orbiting above the lunar surface. In 2009, NASA's robotic Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, while orbiting above the Moon, began photographing the remnants of the Apollo program left on the lunar surface, and photographed each site where manned Apollo flights landed. All