“The Eagle has landed. . . ”
On this day, July 20, in 1969, Apollo 11 became the first space flight to land two humans on the moon. Apollo 11 was launched from Cape Kennedy and was the fifth manned mission of NASA’s Apollo program. American astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed the lunar module Eagle at 20:18 UTC.This became the first TV transmission to Earth from Apollo 11—an estimated 530 million people watched Armstrong’s televised image. Armstrong spoke one of the most famous statements ever made during the event as he took “. . . one small step for a man, a giant leap for mankind,” forever changing the future of the space program.
Prior to the landing, President Kennedy had set a national goal in May 1961 to perform a crewed lunar landing and return to Earth, which was the primary objective of Apollo 11.
Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin spent 21 hours, 36 minutes on the moon’s surface. Reentry procedures were initiated July 24, 1969, 44 hours after leaving lunar orbit. The landing was broadcast on live TV to a worldwide audience. The iconic return to Earth with a splashdown into the Pacific Ocean happened after more than eight days in space. It is said that the Apollo 11 mission effectively ended the space race and fulfilled the national goal set by President Kennedy before the end of the 1960s, cementing the United States as the world’s leader in space exploration. The legacy Apollo astronauts and their missions inspired generations of new explorers, and today there are private space companies—working in cooperation with NASA—to take us to new heights and reveal the unknown.