Apollo 11
The primary objective of Apollo 11 was to complete a national goal set by President John F. Kennedy on May 25, 1961: perform a crewed lunar landing and return to Earth.
Mission Type
astronauts
Launch
Landing
Neil Armstrong
First human to set foot on the Moon.
Armstrong was the commander for the Apollo 11 mission.
Read About Neil ArmstrongEdwin “Buzz” Aldrin
The second human to set foot on the Moon
Buzz served as lunar module pilot for Apollo 11,
Read About Buzz AldrinMichael Collins
Collins served as command module pilot on Apollo 11.
Collins was one of the third group of astronauts named by NASA in October 1963. He served as backup pilot for the Gemini VII mission.
Read About Michael CollinsApollo 11 Mission Overview
“The Eagle has landed…” Mission Objective The primary objective of Apollo 11 was to complete a national goal set by…
Read the StoryJuly 20, 1969: One Giant Leap For Mankind
July 1969. It's a little over eight years since the flights of Gagarin and Shepard, followed quickly by President Kennedy's challenge to put a man on the moon before the decade is out.
Learn MoreWho Was Neil Armstrong? (Grades K-4)
Neil Armstrong was the first person to walk on the moon. He was an astronaut. He flew on two space missions. One was Apollo 11. That mission landed on the moon. He was also an engineer, a pilot and a college professor.
Read MoreWho Was Neil Armstrong? (Grades 5-8)
Neil Armstrong was the first human to walk on the surface of the moon. He was an astronaut who flew on two space missions. The first was Gemini 8. The second was Apollo 11, which landed on the moon in 1969. Armstrong was also an engineer, a pilot and a college professor.
Read MoreWhat Was the Apollo Program? (Grades K-4)
Apollo was a NASA program that sent people to the moon. There were 11 Apollo flights. The first Apollo flight was in 1968.
Read MoreWhat Was the Apollo Program? (Grades 5-8)
Apollo was the NASA program that resulted in American astronauts’ making a total of 11 spaceflights and walking on the moon.
Read MoreApollo 11 Articles
Read about the details of this landmark mission to the Moon.
On May 6, 1968, NASA astronaut Neil A. Armstrong took off on a simulated lunar landing mission in a Lunar Landing Research Vehicle (LLRV) at Houston’s Ellington Air Force Base (AFB). After about five minutes of nominal flying, the vehicle…
Less than five months after Apollo 11 astronauts Neil A. Armstrong, Michael Collins, and Edwin E. “Buzz” Aldrin returned from their Moon landing mission with 48 pounds of lunar samples, scientists who conducted preliminary studies of those samples met to…
What do you do for an encore when you’ve just completed the first human Moon landing mission? You go on a 38-day around the world goodwill tour, visiting 29 cities in 24 countries, at the request of the President of…
The Apollo 11 astronauts’ busy August 1969 postflight schedule continued into September with events throughout the United States. These included attending hometown parades, dedicating a stamp to commemorate their historic mission, unveiling a display of a Moon rock they collected,…
On July 24, 1969, Apollo 11 command module Columbia splashed down in the Pacific, fulfilling President Kennedy’s goal to land a man on the Moon and return him safely to Earth. Among the mission’s many firsts was the acquisition and…