Apollo 11 Gold Coin Buzz Aldrin Lightyear Americana Sci-Fi Film Movie Genre Moon

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Seller: Top-Rated Seller checkoutmyunqiuefunitems ✉️ (3,666) 99.9%, Location: Manchester, Take a look at my other items, GB, Ships to: WORLDWIDE, Item: 276226164534 Apollo 11 Gold Coin Buzz Aldrin Lightyear Americana Sci-Fi Film Movie Genre Moon. Without landing. Orloff 2000, p. 109. Orloff 2000, p. 106. Chaikin 1994, p. 150. a general slope of less than two degrees in the landing area. Mindell 2008, pp. 195–197. Collins 2001, pp. 401–407.
Moon Landing Apollo 11 Gold Coin Gold Plated Commemoration Moon Landing Gold Coin First Man on the Moon It has images of the 3 Appollo 11 Astronauts Niel Armstrong, Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin and Michael Collins The Famous Words "One Small Step for a Man One Giant Leap for Mankind" around the rim The Flip side has an image of the landing craft and the words "United States of America" & "First Foot Prints on the Moon" An Amazing Keepsake and Souvenir of an Incredible Event. Would Make a Perfect Gift Dimensions 40mm in diameter and weights about 1 oz  In Excellent Condition Comes in air-tight acrylic coin holder Please Check out my other Coins >  Check out my other items !   Bid with Confidence - Check My 100% Positive Feedback from almost 1,200 Satisfied Customers I have over 4 years of Ebay Selling Experience - So Why Not Treat Yourself? I have got married recently and need to raise funds to meet the costs also we are planning to move into a house together I always combined postage on multiple items so why not  >   Check out my other items !     All Payment Methods in All Major Currencies Accepted. All Items Sent out within 24 hours of Receiving Payment. 

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Apollo 11 Operator    NASA COSPAR ID         CSM: 1969-059A     LM: 1969-059C SATCAT no.         CSM: 4039[2]     LM: 4041[3] Mission duration    8 days, 3 hours, 18 minutes, 35 seconds Spacecraft properties Spacecraft         Apollo CSM-107     Apollo LM-5 Manufacturer         CSM: North American Rockwell     LM: Grumman Launch mass    100,756 pounds (45,702 kg) Landing mass    10,873 pounds (4,932 kg) Crew Crew size    3 Members         Neil A. Armstrong     Michael Collins     Edwin E. Aldrin Jr. Callsign         CSM: Columbia     LM: Eagle     On surface: Tranquility Base Start of mission Launch date    July 16, 1969, 13:32:00 UTC[4] Rocket    Saturn V SA-506 Launch site    Kennedy Space Center LC-39A End of mission Recovered by    USS Hornet Landing date    July 24, 1969, 16:50:35 UTC Landing site         North Pacific Ocean     13°19′N 169°9′W Orbital parameters Reference system    Selenocentric Periselene altitude    100.9 kilometers (54.5 nmi)[5] Aposelene altitude    122.4 kilometers (66.1 nmi)[5] Inclination    1.25 degrees[5] Period    2 hours[5] Epoch    July 19, 1969, 21:44 UTC[5] Lunar orbiter Spacecraft component    Command and service module Orbital insertion    July 19, 1969, 17:21:50 UTC[6] Orbital departure    July 22, 1969, 04:55:42 UTC[7] Orbits    30 Lunar lander Spacecraft component    Apollo Lunar Module Landing date    July 20, 1969, 20:17:40 UTC[8] Return launch    July 21, 1969, 17:54:00 UTC[9] Landing site         Tranquility Base,     Mare Tranquillitatis     0.67416°N 23.47314°E[10] Sample mass    21.55 kilograms (47.51 lb) Surface EVAs    1 EVA duration    2 hours, 31 minutes, 40 seconds Docking with LM Docking date    July 16, 1969, 16:56:03 UTC[6] Undocking date    July 20, 1969, 17:44:00 UTC[11] Docking with LM ascent stage Docking date    July 21, 1969, 21:35:00 UTC[7] Undocking date    July 21, 1969, 23:41:31 UTC[7] Circular insignia: eagle with wings outstretched holds olive branch on Moon with Earth in background, in blue and gold border. Apollo 11 crew Left to right: Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins, Buzz Aldrin Apollo program ← Apollo 10 Apollo 12 →   Apollo 11 (July 16–24, 1969) was the American spaceflight that first landed humans on the Moon. Commander Neil Armstrong and lunar module pilot Buzz Aldrin landed the Apollo Lunar Module Eagle on July 20, 1969, at 20:17 UTC, and Armstrong became the first person to step onto the Moon's surface six hours and 39 minutes later, on July 21 at 02:56 UTC. Aldrin joined him 19 minutes later, and they spent about two and a quarter hours together exploring the site they had named Tranquility Base upon landing. Armstrong and Aldrin collected 47.5 pounds (21.5 kg) of lunar material to bring back to Earth as pilot Michael Collins flew the Command Module Columbia in lunar orbit, and were on the Moon's surface for 21 hours, 36 minutes before lifting off to rejoin Columbia. Apollo 11 was launched by a Saturn V rocket from Kennedy Space Center on Merritt Island, Florida, on July 16 at 13:32 UTC, and it was the fifth crewed mission of NASA's Apollo program. The Apollo spacecraft had three parts: a command module (CM) with a cabin for the three astronauts, the only part that returned to Earth; a service module (SM), which supported the command module with propulsion, electrical power, oxygen, and water; and a lunar module (LM) that had two stages—a descent stage for landing on the Moon and an ascent stage to place the astronauts back into lunar orbit. After being sent to the Moon by the Saturn V's third stage, the astronauts separated the spacecraft from it and traveled for three days until they entered lunar orbit. Armstrong and Aldrin then moved into Eagle and landed in the Sea of Tranquility on July 20. The astronauts used Eagle's ascent stage to lift off from the lunar surface and rejoin Collins in the command module. They jettisoned Eagle before they performed the maneuvers that propelled Columbia out of the last of its 30 lunar orbits onto a trajectory back to Earth.[7] They returned to Earth and splashed down in the Pacific Ocean on July 24 after more than eight days in space. Armstrong's first step onto the lunar surface was broadcast on live TV to a worldwide audience. He described the event as "one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind."[a][13] Apollo 11 effectively proved US victory in the Space Race to demonstrate spaceflight superiority, by fulfilling a national goal proposed in 1961 by President John F. Kennedy, "before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth."[14] Background In the late 1950s and early 1960s, the United States was engaged in the Cold War, a geopolitical rivalry with the Soviet Union.[15] On October 4, 1957, the Soviet Union launched Sputnik 1, the first artificial satellite. This surprise success fired fears and imaginations around the world. It demonstrated that the Soviet Union had the capability to deliver nuclear weapons over intercontinental distances, and challenged American claims of military, economic and technological superiority.[16] This precipitated the Sputnik crisis, and triggered the Space Race to prove which superpower would achieve superior spaceflight capability.[17] President Dwight D. Eisenhower responded to the Sputnik challenge by creating the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), and initiating Project Mercury,[18] which aimed to launch a man into Earth orbit.[19] But on April 12, 1961, Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first person in space, and the first to orbit the Earth.[20] Nearly a month later, on May 5, 1961, Alan Shepard became the first American in space, completing a 15-minute suborbital journey. After being recovered from the Atlantic Ocean, he received a congratulatory telephone call from Eisenhower's successor, John F. Kennedy.[21] Since the Soviet Union had higher lift capacity launch vehicles, Kennedy chose, from among options presented by NASA, a challenge beyond the capacity of the existing generation of rocketry, so that the US and Soviet Union would be starting from a position of equality. A crewed mission to the Moon would serve this purpose.[22] On May 25, 1961, Kennedy addressed the United States Congress on "Urgent National Needs" and declared:     I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade [1960s] is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth. No single space project in this period will be more impressive to mankind, or more important for the long-range exploration of space; and none will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish. We propose to accelerate the development of the appropriate lunar space craft. We propose to develop alternate liquid and solid fuel boosters, much larger than any now being developed, until certain which is superior. We propose additional funds for other engine development and for unmanned explorations—explorations which are particularly important for one purpose which this nation will never overlook: the survival of the man who first makes this daring flight. But in a very real sense, it will not be one man going to the Moon—if we make this judgment affirmatively, it will be an entire nation. For all of us must work to put him there.     — Kennedy's speech to Congress[23] On September 12, 1962, Kennedy delivered another speech before a crowd of about 40,000 people in the Rice University football stadium in Houston, Texas.[24][25] A widely quoted refrain from the middle portion of the speech reads as follows: Kennedy, in a blue suit and tie, speaks at a wooden podium bearing the seal of the President of the United States. Vice President Lyndon Johnson and other dignitaries stand behind him. President John F. Kennedy speaking at Rice University on September 12, 1962     There is no strife, no prejudice, no national conflict in outer space as yet. Its hazards are hostile to us all. Its conquest deserves the best of all mankind, and its opportunity for peaceful cooperation may never come again. But why, some say, the Moon? Why choose this as our goal? And they may well ask, why climb the highest mountain? Why, 35 years ago, fly the Atlantic? Why does Rice play Texas? We choose to go to the Moon! We choose to go to the Moon ... We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard; because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one we intend to win, and the others, too.[26] In spite of that, the proposed program faced the opposition of many Americans and was dubbed a "moondoggle" by Norbert Wiener, a mathematician at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.[27][28] The effort to land a man on the Moon already had a name: Project Apollo.[29] When Kennedy met with Nikita Khrushchev, the Premier of the Soviet Union in June 1961, he proposed making the Moon landing a joint project, but Khrushchev did not take up the offer.[30] Kennedy again proposed a joint expedition to the Moon in a speech to the United Nations General Assembly on September 20, 1963.[31] The idea of a joint Moon mission was abandoned after Kennedy's death.[32] An early and crucial decision was choosing lunar orbit rendezvous over both direct ascent and Earth orbit rendezvous. A space rendezvous is an orbital maneuver in which two spacecraft navigate through space and meet up. In July 1962 NASA head James Webb announced that lunar orbit rendezvous would be used[33][34] and that the Apollo spacecraft would have three major parts: a command module (CM) with a cabin for the three astronauts, and the only part that returned to Earth; a service module (SM), which supported the command module with propulsion, electrical power, oxygen, and water; and a lunar module (LM) that had two stages—a descent stage for landing on the Moon, and an ascent stage to place the astronauts back into lunar orbit.[35] This design meant the spacecraft could be launched by a single Saturn V rocket that was then under development.[36] Technologies and techniques required for Apollo were developed by Project Gemini.[37] The Apollo project was enabled by NASA's adoption of new advances in semiconductor electronic technology, including metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistors (MOSFETs) in the Interplanetary Monitoring Platform (IMP)[38][39] and silicon integrated circuit (IC) chips in the Apollo Guidance Computer (AGC).[40] Project Apollo was abruptly halted by the Apollo 1 fire on January 27, 1967, in which astronauts Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger B. Chaffee died, and the subsequent investigation.[41] In October 1968, Apollo 7 evaluated the command module in Earth orbit,[42] and in December Apollo 8 tested it in lunar orbit.[43] In March 1969, Apollo 9 put the lunar module through its paces in Earth orbit,[44] and in May Apollo 10 conducted a "dress rehearsal" in lunar orbit. By July 1969, all was in readiness for Apollo 11 to take the final step onto the Moon.[45] The Soviet Union appeared to be winning the Space Race by beating the US to firsts, but its early lead was overtaken by the US Gemini program and Soviet failure to develop the N1 launcher, which would have been comparable to the Saturn V.[46] The Soviets tried to beat the US to return lunar material to the Earth by means of uncrewed probes. On July 13, three days before Apollo 11's launch, the Soviet Union launched Luna 15, which reached lunar orbit before Apollo 11. During descent, a malfunction caused Luna 15 to crash in Mare Crisium about two hours before Armstrong and Aldrin took off from the Moon's surface to begin their voyage home. The Nuffield Radio Astronomy Laboratories radio telescope in England recorded transmissions from Luna 15 during its descent, and these were released in July 2009 for the 40th anniversary of Apollo 11.[47] Personnel Prime crew Position     Astronaut Commander     Neil A. Armstrong Second and last spaceflight Command Module Pilot     Michael Collins Second and last spaceflight Lunar Module Pilot     Edwin "Buzz" E. Aldrin Jr. Second and last spaceflight The initial crew assignment of Commander Neil Armstrong, Command Module Pilot (CMP) Jim Lovell, and Lunar Module Pilot (LMP) Buzz Aldrin on the backup crew for Apollo 9 was officially announced on November 20, 1967.[48] Lovell and Aldrin had previously flown together as the crew of Gemini 12. Due to design and manufacturing delays in the LM, Apollo 8 and Apollo 9 swapped prime and backup crews, and Armstrong's crew became the backup for Apollo 8. Based on the normal crew rotation scheme, Armstrong was then expected to command Apollo 11.[49] There would be one change. Michael Collins, the CMP on the Apollo 8 crew, began experiencing trouble with his legs. Doctors diagnosed the problem as a bony growth between his fifth and sixth vertebrae, requiring surgery.[50] Lovell took his place on the Apollo 8 crew, and when Collins recovered he joined Armstrong's crew as CMP. In the meantime, Fred Haise filled in as backup LMP, and Aldrin as backup CMP for Apollo 8.[51] Apollo 11 was the second American mission where all the crew members had prior spaceflight experience,[52] the first being Apollo 10.[53] The next was STS-26 in 1988.[52] Deke Slayton gave Armstrong the option to replace Aldrin with Lovell, since some thought Aldrin was difficult to work with. Armstrong had no issues working with Aldrin but thought it over for a day before declining. He thought Lovell deserved to command his own mission (eventually Apollo 13).[54] The Apollo 11 prime crew had none of the close cheerful camaraderie characterized by that of Apollo 12. Instead, they forged an amiable working relationship. Armstrong in particular was notoriously aloof, but Collins, who considered himself a loner, confessed to rebuffing Aldrin's attempts to create a more personal relationship.[55] Aldrin and Collins described the crew as "amiable strangers".[56] Armstrong did not agree with the assessment, and said "... all the crews I was on worked very well together."[56] Backup crew Position     Astronaut Commander     James A. Lovell Jr. Command Module Pilot     William A. Anders Lunar Module Pilot     Fred W. Haise Jr. The backup crew consisted of Lovell as Commander, William Anders as CMP, and Haise as LMP. Anders had flown with Lovell on Apollo 8.[52] In early 1969, he accepted a job with the National Aeronautics and Space Council effective August 1969, and announced he would retire as an astronaut at that time. Ken Mattingly was moved from the support crew into parallel training with Anders as backup CMP in case Apollo 11 was delayed past its intended July launch date, at which point Anders would be unavailable.[57] By the normal crew rotation in place during Apollo, Lovell, Mattingly, and Haise were scheduled to fly on Apollo 14 after backing up for Apollo 11. Later, Lovell's crew was forced to switch places with Alan Shepard's tentative Apollo 13 crew to give Shepard more training time.[57] Support crew During Projects Mercury and Gemini, each mission had a prime and a backup crew. For Apollo, a third crew of astronauts was added, known as the support crew. The support crew maintained the flight plan, checklists and mission ground rules, and ensured the prime and backup crews were apprised of changes. They developed procedures, especially those for emergency situations, so these were ready for when the prime and backup crews came to train in the simulators, allowing them to concentrate on practicing and mastering them.[58] For Apollo 11, the support crew consisted of Ken Mattingly, Ronald Evans and Bill Pogue.[59] Capsule communicators CAPCOM Charles Duke (left), with backup crewmen Jim Lovell and Fred Haise listening in during Apollo 11's descent The capsule communicator (CAPCOM) was an astronaut at the Mission Control Center in Houston, Texas, who was the only person who communicated directly with the flight crew.[60] For Apollo 11, the CAPCOMs were: Charles Duke, Ronald Evans, Bruce McCandless II, James Lovell, William Anders, Ken Mattingly, Fred Haise, Don L. Lind, Owen K. Garriott and Harrison Schmitt.[59] Flight directors The flight directors for this mission were:[61][62][63][64][65][66] Apollo 11 flight directors Name     Shift     Team     Activities Clifford E. Charlesworth     1     Green     Launch and extravehicular activity (EVA) Gerald D. Griffin     1     Gold     Backup for shift 1 Gene Kranz     2     White     Lunar landing Glynn Lunney     3     Black     Lunar ascent Milton Windler     4     Maroon     Planning Other key personnel Other key personnel who played important roles in the Apollo 11 mission include the following.[67] Other personnel Name     Activities Farouk El-Baz     Geologist, studied geology of the Moon, identified landing locations, trained pilots Kurt Debus     Rocket scientist, supervised construction of launch pads and infrastructure Jamye Flowers     Secretary for astronauts Eleanor Foraker     Tailor who designed space suits Jack Garman     Computer engineer and technician Millicent Goldschmidt     Microbiologist who designed aseptic lunar material collection techniques and trained astronauts Eldon C. Hall     Apollo Guidance Computer hardware designer Margaret Hamilton     Onboard flight computer software engineer John Houbolt     Route planner Gene Shoemaker     Geologist who trained astronauts in field geology Bill Tindall     Coordinated mission techniques Preparations Insignia Apollo 11 insignia The Apollo 11 mission emblem was designed by Collins, who wanted a symbol for "peaceful lunar landing by the United States". At Lovell's suggestion, he chose the bald eagle, the national bird of the United States, as the symbol. Tom Wilson, a simulator instructor, suggested an olive branch in its beak to represent their peaceful mission. Collins added a lunar background with the Earth in the distance. The sunlight in the image was coming from the wrong direction; the shadow should have been in the lower part of the Earth instead of the left. Aldrin, Armstrong and Collins decided the Eagle and the Moon would be in their natural colors, and decided on a blue and gold border. Armstrong was concerned that "eleven" would not be understood by non-English speakers, so they went with "Apollo 11",[68] and they decided not to put their names on the patch, so it would "be representative of everyone who had worked toward a lunar landing".[69] An illustrator at the Manned Spacecraft Center (MSC) did the artwork, which was then sent off to NASA officials for approval.[68] The design was rejected. Bob Gilruth, the director of the MSC felt the talons of the eagle looked "too warlike".[70] After some discussion, the olive branch was moved to the talons.[70] When the Eisenhower dollar coin was released in 1971, the patch design provided the eagle for its reverse side.[71] The design was also used for the smaller Susan B. Anthony dollar unveiled in 1979.[72] Call signs After the crew of Apollo 10 named their spacecraft Charlie Brown and Snoopy, assistant manager for public affairs Julian Scheer wrote to George Low, the Manager of the Apollo Spacecraft Program Office at the MSC, to suggest the Apollo 11 crew be less flippant in naming their craft. The name Snowcone was used for the CM and Haystack was used for the LM in both internal and external communications during early mission planning.[73] The LM was named Eagle after the motif which was featured prominently on the mission insignia. At Scheer's suggestion, the CM was named Columbia after Columbiad, the giant cannon that launched a spacecraft (also from Florida) in Jules Verne's 1865 novel From the Earth to the Moon. It also referred to Columbia, a historical name of the United States. [74][75] In Collins' 1976 book, he said Columbia was in reference to Christopher Columbus.[76] Mementos see caption Apollo 11 space-flown silver Robbins medallion The astronauts had personal preference kits (PPKs), small bags containing personal items of significance they wanted to take with them on the mission.[77] Five 0.5-pound (0.23 kg) PPKs were carried on Apollo 11: three (one for each astronaut) were stowed on Columbia before launch, and two on Eagle.[78] Neil Armstrong's LM PPK contained a piece of wood from the Wright brothers' 1903 Wright Flyer's left propeller and a piece of fabric from its wing,[79] along with a diamond-studded astronaut pin originally given to Slayton by the widows of the Apollo 1 crew. This pin had been intended to be flown on that mission and given to Slayton afterwards, but following the disastrous launch pad fire and subsequent funerals, the widows gave the pin to Slayton. Armstrong took it with him on Apollo 11.[80] Site selection Map of Moon showing prospective sites for Apollo 11. Site 2 was chosen. 1 white, blue rounded rectangle.svg 2 white, blue rounded rectangle.svg 3 white, blue rounded rectangle.svg 4 white, blue rounded rectangle.svg 5 white, blue rounded rectangle.svg Map of Moon showing prospective sites for Apollo 11. Site 2 was chosen. NASA's Apollo Site Selection Board announced five potential landing sites on February 8, 1968. These were the result of two years' worth of studies based on high-resolution photography of the lunar surface by the five uncrewed probes of the Lunar Orbiter program and information about surface conditions provided by the Surveyor program.[81] The best Earth-bound telescopes could not resolve features with the resolution Project Apollo required.[82] The landing site had to be close to the lunar equator to minimize the amount of propellant required, clear of obstacles to minimize maneuvering, and flat to simplify the task of the landing radar. Scientific value was not a consideration.[83] Areas that appeared promising on photographs taken on Earth were often found to be totally unacceptable. The original requirement that the site be free of craters had to be relaxed, as no such site was found.[84] Five sites were considered: Sites 1 and 2 were in the Sea of Tranquility (Mare Tranquillitatis); Site 3 was in the Central Bay (Sinus Medii); and Sites 4 and 5 were in the Ocean of Storms (Oceanus Procellarum).[81] The final site selection was based on seven criteria:     The site needed to be smooth, with relatively few craters;     with approach paths free of large hills, tall cliffs or deep craters that might confuse the landing radar and cause it to issue incorrect readings;     reachable with a minimum amount of propellant;     allowing for delays in the launch countdown;     providing the Apollo spacecraft with a free-return trajectory, one that would allow it to coast around the Moon and safely return to Earth without requiring any engine firings should a problem arise on the way to the Moon;     with good visibility during the landing approach, meaning the Sun would be between 7 and 20 degrees behind the LM; and     a general slope of less than two degrees in the landing area.[81] The requirement for the Sun angle was particularly restrictive, limiting the launch date to one day per month.[81] A landing just after dawn was chosen to limit the temperature extremes the astronauts would experience.[85] The Apollo Site Selection Board selected Site 2, with Sites 3 and 5 as backups in the event of the launch being delayed. In May 1969, Apollo 10's lunar module flew to within 15 kilometers (9.3 mi) of Site 2, and reported it was acceptable.[86][87] First-step decision During the first press conference after the Apollo 11 crew was announced, the first question was, "Which one of you gentlemen will be the first man to step onto the lunar surface?"[88][89] Slayton told the reporter it had not been decided, and Armstrong added that it was "not based on individual desire".[88] One of the first versions of the egress checklist had the lunar module pilot exit the spacecraft before the commander, which matched what had been done on Gemini missions,[90] where the commander had never performed the spacewalk.[91] Reporters wrote in early 1969 that Aldrin would be the first man to walk on the Moon, and Associate Administrator George Mueller told reporters he would be first as well. Aldrin heard that Armstrong would be the first because Armstrong was a civilian, which made Aldrin livid. Aldrin attempted to persuade other lunar module pilots he should be first, but they responded cynically about what they perceived as a lobbying campaign. Attempting to stem interdepartmental conflict, Slayton told Aldrin that Armstrong would be first since he was the commander. The decision was announced in a press conference on April 14, 1969.[92] For decades, Aldrin believed the final decision was largely driven by the lunar module's hatch location. Because the astronauts had their spacesuits on and the spacecraft was so small, maneuvering to exit the spacecraft was difficult. The crew tried a simulation in which Aldrin left the spacecraft first, but he damaged the simulator while attempting to egress. While this was enough for mission planners to make their decision, Aldrin and Armstrong were left in the dark on the decision until late spring.[93] Slayton told Armstrong the plan was to have him leave the spacecraft first, if he agreed. Armstrong said, "Yes, that's the way to do it."[94] The media accused Armstrong of exercising his commander's prerogative to exit the spacecraft first.[95] Chris Kraft revealed in his 2001 autobiography that a meeting occurred between Gilruth, Slayton, Low, and himself to make sure Aldrin would not be the first to walk on the Moon. They argued that the first person to walk on the Moon should be like Charles Lindbergh, a calm and quiet person. They made the decision to change the flight plan so the commander was the first to egress from the spacecraft.[96] Pre-launch Saturn V SA-506, the rocket carrying the Apollo 11 spacecraft, moves out of the Vehicle Assembly Building towards Launch Complex 39 The ascent stage of LM-5 Eagle arrived at the Kennedy Space Center on January 8, 1969, followed by the descent stage four days later, and CSM-107 Columbia on January 23.[4] There were several differences between Eagle and Apollo 10's LM-4 Snoopy; Eagle had a VHF radio antenna to facilitate communication with the astronauts during their EVA on the lunar surface; a lighter ascent engine; more thermal protection on the landing gear; and a package of scientific experiments known as the Early Apollo Scientific Experiments Package (EASEP). The only change in the configuration of the command module was the removal of some insulation from the forward hatch.[97][98] The CSM was mated on January 29, and moved from the Operations and Checkout Building to the Vehicle Assembly Building on April 14.[4] The S-IVB third stage of Saturn V AS-506 had arrived on January 18, followed by the S-II second stage on February 6, S-IC first stage on February 20, and the Saturn V Instrument Unit on February 27. At 12:30 on May 20, the 5,443-tonne (5,357-long-ton; 6,000-short-ton) assembly departed the Vehicle Assembly Building atop the crawler-transporter, bound for Launch Pad 39A, part of Launch Complex 39, while Apollo 10 was still on its way to the Moon. A countdown test commenced on June 26, and concluded on July 2. The launch complex was floodlit on the night of July 15, when the crawler-transporter carried the mobile service structure back to its parking area.[4] In the early hours of the morning, the fuel tanks of the S-II and S-IVB stages were filled with liquid hydrogen.[99] Fueling was completed by three hours before launch.[100] Launch operations were partly automated, with 43 programs written in the ATOLL programming language.[101] Slayton roused the crew shortly after 04:00, and they showered, shaved, and had the traditional pre-flight breakfast of steak and eggs with Slayton and the backup crew. They then donned their space suits and began breathing pure oxygen. At 06:30, they headed out to Launch Complex 39.[102] Haise entered Columbia about three hours and ten minutes before launch time. Along with a technician, he helped Armstrong into the left-hand couch at 06:54. Five minutes later, Collins joined him, taking up his position on the right-hand couch. Finally, Aldrin entered, taking the center couch.[100] Haise left around two hours and ten minutes before launch.[103] The closeout crew sealed the hatch, and the cabin was purged and pressurized. The closeout crew then left the launch complex about an hour before launch time. The countdown became automated at three minutes and twenty seconds before launch time.[100] Over 450 personnel were at the consoles in the firing room.[99] Mission Launch and flight to lunar orbit The Apollo 11 Saturn V space vehicle lifts off with Astronauts Neil A. Armstrong, Michael Collins and Edwin E. Aldrin Jr. at 9:32 a.m. EDT July 16, 1969, from Kennedy Space Center's Launch Complex 39A. An estimated one million spectators watched the launch of Apollo 11 from the highways and beaches in the vicinity of the launch site. Dignitaries included the Chief of Staff of the United States Army, General William Westmoreland, four cabinet members, 19 state governors, 40 mayors, 60 ambassadors and 200 congressmen. Vice President Spiro Agnew viewed the launch with former president Lyndon B. Johnson and his wife Lady Bird Johnson.[99][104] Around 3,500 media representatives were present.[105] About two-thirds were from the United States; the rest came from 55 other countries. The launch was televised live in 33 countries, with an estimated 25 million viewers in the United States alone. Millions more around the world listened to radio broadcasts.[104][99] President Richard Nixon viewed the launch from his office in the White House with his NASA liaison officer, Apollo astronaut Frank Borman.[106] Saturn V AS-506 launched Apollo 11 on July 16, 1969, at 13:32:00 UTC (9:32:00 EDT).[4] At 13.2 seconds into the flight, the launch vehicle began to roll into its flight azimuth of 72.058°. Full shutdown of the first-stage engines occurred about 2 minutes and 42 seconds into the mission, followed by separation of the S-IC and ignition of the S-II engines. The second stage engines then cut off and separated at about 9 minutes and 8 seconds, allowing the first ignition of the S-IVB engine a few seconds later.[6] Apollo 11 entered a near-circular Earth orbit at an altitude of 100.4 nautical miles (185.9 km) by 98.9 nautical miles (183.2 km), twelve minutes into its flight. After one and a half orbits, a second ignition of the S-IVB engine pushed the spacecraft onto its trajectory toward the Moon with the trans-lunar injection (TLI) burn at 16:22:13 UTC. About 30 minutes later, with Collins in the left seat and at the controls, the transposition, docking, and extraction maneuver was performed. This involved separating Columbia from the spent S-IVB stage, turning around, and docking with Eagle still attached to the stage. After the LM was extracted, the combined spacecraft headed for the Moon, while the rocket stage flew on a trajectory past the Moon.[107][6] This was done to avoid the third stage colliding with the spacecraft, the Earth, or the Moon. A slingshot effect from passing around the Moon threw it into an orbit around the Sun.[108] On July 19 at 17:21:50 UTC, Apollo 11 passed behind the Moon and fired its service propulsion engine to enter lunar orbit.[6][109] In the thirty orbits that followed, the crew saw passing views of their landing site in the southern Sea of Tranquility about 12 miles (19 km) southwest of the crater Sabine D. The site was selected in part because it had been characterized as relatively flat and smooth by the automated Ranger 8 and Surveyor 5 landers and the Lunar Orbiter mapping spacecraft, and because it was unlikely to present major landing or EVA challenges.[110] It lay about 25 kilometers (16 mi) southeast of the Surveyor 5 landing site, and 68 kilometers (42 mi) southwest of Ranger 8's crash site.[111] Lunar descent The top of the silvery command module is seen over a grey, cratered lunar surface Columbia in lunar orbit, photographed from Eagle At 12:52:00 UTC on July 20, Aldrin and Armstrong entered Eagle, and began the final preparations for lunar descent.[6] At 17:44:00 Eagle separated from Columbia.[11] Collins, alone aboard Columbia, inspected Eagle as it pirouetted before him to ensure the craft was not damaged, and that the landing gear was correctly deployed.[112][113] Armstrong exclaimed: "The Eagle has wings!"[113] As the descent began, Armstrong and Aldrin found themselves passing landmarks on the surface two or three seconds early, and reported that they were "long"; they would land miles west of their target point. Eagle was traveling too fast. The problem could have been mascons—concen­tra­tions of high mass in a region or regions of the Moon's crust that contains a gravitational anomaly, potentially altering Eagle's trajectory. Flight Director Gene Kranz speculated that it could have resulted from extra air pressure in the docking tunnel. Or it could have been the result of Eagle's pirouette maneuver.[114][115] Five minutes into the descent burn, and 6,000 feet (1,800 m) above the surface of the Moon, the LM guidance computer (LGC) distracted the crew with the first of several unexpected 1201 and 1202 program alarms. Inside Mission Control Center, computer engineer Jack Garman told Guidance Officer Steve Bales it was safe to continue the descent, and this was relayed to the crew. The program alarms indicated "executive overflows", meaning the guidance computer could not complete all its tasks in real-time and had to postpone some of them.[116][117] Margaret Hamilton, the Director of Apollo Flight Computer Programming at the MIT Charles Stark Draper Laboratory later recalled: Eagle in lunar orbit photographed from Columbia     To blame the computer for the Apollo 11 problems is like blaming the person who spots a fire and calls the fire department. Actually, the computer was programmed to do more than recognize error conditions. A complete set of recovery programs was incorporated into the software. The software's action, in this case, was to eliminate lower priority tasks and re-establish the more important ones. The computer, rather than almost forcing an abort, prevented an abort. If the computer hadn't recognized this problem and taken recovery action, I doubt if Apollo 11 would have been the successful Moon landing it was.[118] During the mission, the cause was diagnosed as the rendezvous radar switch being in the wrong position, causing the computer to process data from both the rendezvous and landing radars at the same time.[119][120] Software engineer Don Eyles concluded in a 2005 Guidance and Control Conference paper that the problem was due to a hardware design bug previously seen during testing of the first uncrewed LM in Apollo 5. Having the rendezvous radar on (so it was warmed up in case of an emergency landing abort) should have been irrelevant to the computer, but an electrical phasing mismatch between two parts of the rendezvous radar system could cause the stationary antenna to appear to the computer as dithering back and forth between two positions, depending upon how the hardware randomly powered up. The extra spurious cycle stealing, as the rendezvous radar updated an involuntary counter, caused the computer alarms.[121] Landing File:AP11 FINAL APPROACH.ogvPlay media Armstrong pilots Eagle to its landing on the Moon, July 20, 1969 When Armstrong again looked outside, he saw that the computer's landing target was in a boulder-strewn area just north and east of a 300-foot-diameter (91 m) crater (later determined to be West crater), so he took semi-automatic control.[122][123] Armstrong considered landing short of the boulder field so they could collect geological samples from it, but could not since their horizontal velocity was too high. Throughout the descent, Aldrin called out navigation data to Armstrong, who was busy piloting Eagle. Now 107 feet (33 m) above the surface, Armstrong knew their propellant supply was dwindling and was determined to land at the first possible landing site.[124] Armstrong found a clear patch of ground and maneuvered the spacecraft towards it. As he got closer, now 250 feet (76 m) above the surface, he discovered his new landing site had a crater in it. He cleared the crater and found another patch of level ground. They were now 100 feet (30 m) from the surface, with only 90 seconds of propellant remaining. Lunar dust kicked up by the LM's engine began to impair his ability to determine the spacecraft's motion. Some large rocks jutted out of the dust cloud, and Armstrong focused on them during his descent so he could determine the spacecraft's speed.[125] A light informed Aldrin that at least one of the 67-inch (170 cm) probes hanging from Eagle's footpads had touched the surface a few moments before the landing and he said: "Contact light!" Armstrong was supposed to immediately shut the engine down, as the engineers suspected the pressure caused by the engine's own exhaust reflecting off the lunar surface could make it explode, but he forgot. Three seconds later, Eagle landed and Armstrong shut the engine down.[126] Aldrin immediately said "Okay, engine stop. ACA—out of detent." Armstrong acknowledged: "Out of detent. Auto." Aldrin continued: "Mode control—both auto. Descent engine command override off. Engine arm—off. 413 is in."[127] Landing site relative to West crater ACA was the Attitude Control Assembly—the LM's control stick. Output went to the LGC to command the reaction control system (RCS) jets to fire. "Out of Detent" meant the stick had moved away from its centered position; it was spring-centered like the turn indicator in a car. LGC address 413 contained the variable that indicated the LM had landed.[8] Eagle landed at 20:17:40 UTC on Sunday July 20 with 216 pounds (98 kg) of usable fuel remaining. Information available to the crew and mission controllers during the landing showed the LM had enough fuel for another 25 seconds of powered flight before an abort without touchdown would have become unsafe,[8][128] but post-mission analysis showed that the real figure was probably closer to 50 seconds.[129] Apollo 11 landed with less fuel than most subsequent missions, and the astronauts encountered a premature low fuel warning. This was later found to be the result of the propellant sloshing more than expected, uncovering a fuel sensor. On subsequent missions, extra anti-slosh baffles were added to the tanks to prevent this.[8] Armstrong acknowledged Aldrin's completion of the post-landing checklist with "Engine arm is off", before responding to the CAPCOM, Charles Duke, with the words, "Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed." Armstrong's unrehearsed change of call sign from "Eagle" to "Tranquility Base" emphasized to listeners that landing was complete and successful.[130] Duke mispronounced his reply as he expressed the relief at Mission Control: "Roger, Twan—Tranquility, we copy you on the ground. You got a bunch of guys about to turn blue. We're breathing again. Thanks a lot."[8][131] File:A New Look at the Apollo 11 Landing Site.ogvPlay media 3-D view from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) of Apollo 11 landing site Two and a half hours after landing, before preparations began for the EVA, Aldrin radioed to Earth:     This is the LM pilot. I'd like to take this opportunity to ask every person listening in, whoever and wherever they may be, to pause for a moment and contemplate the events of the past few hours and to give thanks in his or her own way.[132] He then took communion privately. At this time NASA was still fighting a lawsuit brought by atheist Madalyn Murray O'Hair (who had objected to the Apollo 8 crew reading from the Book of Genesis) demanding that their astronauts refrain from broadcasting religious activities while in space. For this reason, Aldrin chose to refrain from directly mentioning taking communion on the Moon. Aldrin was an elder at the Webster Presbyterian Church, and his communion kit was prepared by the pastor of the church, Dean Woodruff. Webster Presbyterian possesses the chalice used on the Moon and commemorates the event each year on the Sunday closest to July 20.[133] The schedule for the mission called for the astronauts to follow the landing with a five-hour sleep period, but they chose to begin preparations for the EVA early, thinking they would be unable to sleep.[134] Lunar surface operations A photograph of Neil Armstrong taken by Buzz Aldrin. This is one of the few photographs of Armstrong on the lunar surface; most of the time he held the camera. Preparations for Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin to walk on the Moon began at 23:43.[11] These took longer than expected; three and a half hours instead of two.[135] During training on Earth, everything required had been neatly laid out in advance, but on the Moon the cabin contained a large number of other items as well, such as checklists, food packets, and tools.[136] Six hours and thirty-nine minutes after landing Armstrong and Aldrin were ready to go outside, and Eagle was depressurized.[137] Eagle's hatch was opened at 02:39:33.[11] Armstrong initially had some difficulties squeezing through the hatch with his portable life support system (PLSS).[135] Some of the highest heart rates recorded from Apollo astronauts occurred during LM egress and ingress.[138] At 02:51 Armstrong began his descent to the lunar surface. The remote control unit on his chest kept him from seeing his feet. Climbing down the nine-rung ladder, Armstrong pulled a D-ring to deploy the modular equipment stowage assembly (MESA) folded against Eagle's side and activate the TV camera.[139][13] Apollo 11 used slow-scan television (TV) incompatible with broadcast TV, so it was displayed on a special monitor and a conventional TV camera viewed this monitor (thus, a broadcast of a broadcast), significantly reducing the quality of the picture.[140] The signal was received at Goldstone in the United States, but with better fidelity by Honeysuckle Creek Tracking Station near Canberra in Australia. Minutes later the feed was switched to the more sensitive Parkes radio telescope in Australia.[141] Despite some technical and weather difficulties, ghostly black and white images of the first lunar EVA were received and broadcast to at least 600 million people on Earth.[141] Copies of this video in broadcast format were saved and are widely available, but recordings of the original slow scan source transmission from the lunar surface were likely destroyed during routine magnetic tape re-use at NASA.[140]      That's one small step ... (0:08) Menu 0:00 Problems playing this file? See media help. After describing the surface dust as "very fine-grained" and "almost like a powder",[13] at 02:56:15,[142] six and a half hours after landing, Armstrong stepped off Eagle's footpad and declared: "That's one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind."[a][143][144] Armstrong intended to say "That's one small step for a man", but the word "a" is not audible in the transmission, and thus was not initially reported by most observers of the live broadcast. When later asked about his quote, Armstrong said he believed he said "for a man", and subsequent printed versions of the quote included the "a" in square brackets. One explanation for the absence may be that his accent caused him to slur the words "for a" together; another is the intermittent nature of the audio and video links to Earth, partly because of storms near Parkes Observatory. A more recent digital analysis of the tape claims to reveal the "a" may have been spoken but obscured by static. Other analysis points to the claims of static and slurring as "face-saving fabrication", and that Armstrong himself later admitted to misspeaking the line.[145][146][147] About seven minutes after stepping onto the Moon's surface, Armstrong collected a contingency soil sample using a sample bag on a stick. He then folded the bag and tucked it into a pocket on his right thigh. This was to guarantee there would be some lunar soil brought back in case an emergency required the astronauts to abandon the EVA and return to the LM.[148] Twelve minutes after the sample was collected,[143] he removed the TV camera from the MESA and made a panoramic sweep, then mounted it on a tripod.[135] The TV camera cable remained partly coiled and presented a tripping hazard throughout the EVA. Still photography was accomplished with a Hasselblad camera that could be operated hand held or mounted on Armstrong's Apollo space suit.[149] Aldrin joined Armstrong on the surface. He described the view with the simple phrase: "Magnificent desolation."[13] Armstrong said moving in the lunar gravity, one-sixth of Earth's, was "even perhaps easier than the simulations ... It's absolutely no trouble to walk around."[13] Aldrin joined him on the surface and tested methods for moving around, including two-footed kangaroo hops. The PLSS backpack created a tendency to tip backward, but neither astronaut had serious problems maintaining balance. Loping became the preferred method of movement. The astronauts reported that they needed to plan their movements six or seven steps ahead. The fine soil was quite slippery. Aldrin remarked that moving from sunlight into Eagle's shadow produced no temperature change inside the suit, but the helmet was warmer in sunlight, so he felt cooler in shadow.[13] The MESA failed to provide a stable work platform and was in shadow, slowing work somewhat. As they worked, the moonwalkers kicked up gray dust, which soiled the outer part of their suits.[149] Aldrin salutes the deployed United States flag on the lunar surface The astronauts planted the Lunar Flag Assembly containing a flag of the United States on the lunar surface, in clear view of the TV camera. Aldrin remembered, "Of all the jobs I had to do on the Moon the one I wanted to go the smoothest was the flag raising."[150] But the astronauts struggled with the telescoping rod and could only jam the pole about 2 inches (5 cm) into the hard lunar surface. Aldrin was afraid it might topple in front of TV viewers. But he gave "a crisp West Point salute".[150] Before Aldrin could take a photo of Armstrong with the flag, President Richard Nixon spoke to them through a telephone-radio transmission, which Nixon called "the most historic phone call ever made from the White House."[151] Nixon originally had a long speech prepared to read during the phone call, but Frank Borman, who was at the White House as a NASA liaison during Apollo 11, convinced Nixon to keep his words brief.[152]     Nixon: Hello, Neil and Buzz. I'm talking to you by telephone from the Oval Room at the White House. And this certainly has to be the most historic telephone call ever made from the White House. I just can't tell you how proud we all are of what you have done. For every American, this has to be the proudest day of our lives. And for people all over the world, I am sure that they too join with Americans in recognizing what an immense feat this is. Because of what you have done, the heavens have become a part of man's world. And as you talk to us from the Sea of Tranquility, it inspires us to redouble our efforts to bring peace and tranquility to Earth. For one priceless moment in the whole history of man, all the people on this Earth are truly one: one in their pride in what you have done, and one in our prayers that you will return safely to Earth.     Armstrong: Thank you, Mr. President. It's a great honor and privilege for us to be here, representing not only the United States, but men of peace of all nations, and with interest and a curiosity, and men with a vision for the future. It's an honor for us to be able to participate here today.[153][154] Aldrin's bootprint; part of an experiment to test the properties of the lunar regolith They deployed the EASEP, which included a passive seismic experiment package used to measure moonquakes and a retroreflector array used for the lunar laser ranging experiment.[155] Then Armstrong walked 196 feet (60 m) from the LM to snap photos at the rim of Little West Crater while Aldrin collected two core samples. He used the geologist's hammer to pound in the tubes—the only time the hammer was used on Apollo 11—but was unable to penetrate more than 6 inches (15 cm) deep. The astronauts then collected rock samples using scoops and tongs on extension handles. Many of the surface activities took longer than expected, so they had to stop documenting sample collection halfway through the allotted 34 minutes. Aldrin shoveled 6 kilograms (13 lb) of soil into the box of rocks in order to pack them in tightly.[156] Two types of rocks were found in the geological samples: basalt and breccia.[157] Three new minerals were discovered in the rock samples collected by the astronauts: armalcolite, tranquillityite, and pyroxferroite. Armalcolite was named after Armstrong, Aldrin, and Collins. All have subsequently been found on Earth.[158] The plaque left on the ladder of Eagle While on the surface, Armstrong uncovered a plaque mounted on the LM ladder, bearing two drawings of Earth (of the Western and Eastern Hemispheres), an inscription, and signatures of the astronauts and President Nixon. The inscription read:     Here men from the planet Earth first set foot upon the Moon July 1969, A. D. We came in peace for all mankind.[13] At the behest of the Nixon administration to add a reference to God, NASA included the vague date as a reason to include A.D., which stands for Anno Domini, "in the year of our Lord" (although it should have been placed before the year, not after).[159] Mission Control used a coded phrase to warn Armstrong his metabolic rates were high, and that he should slow down. He was moving rapidly from task to task as time ran out. As metabolic rates remained generally lower than expected for both astronauts throughout the walk, Mission Control granted the astronauts a 15-minute extension.[155] In a 2010 interview, Armstrong explained that NASA limited the first moonwalk's time and distance because there was no empirical proof of how much cooling water the astronauts' PLSS backpacks would consume to handle their body heat generation while working on the Moon.[160] Lunar ascent Aldrin entered Eagle first. With some difficulty the astronauts lifted film and two sample boxes containing 21.55 kilograms (47.5 lb) of lunar surface material to the LM hatch using a flat cable pulley device called the Lunar Equipment Conveyor (LEC). This proved to be an inefficient tool, and later missions preferred to carry equipment and samples up to the LM by hand.[135] Armstrong reminded Aldrin of a bag of memorial items in his sleeve pocket, and Aldrin tossed the bag down. Armstrong then jumped onto the ladder's third rung, and climbed into the LM. After transferring to LM life support, the explorers lightened the ascent stage for the return to lunar orbit by tossing out their PLSS backpacks, lunar overshoes, an empty Hasselblad camera, and other equipment. The hatch was closed again at 05:11:13. They then pressurized the LM and settled down to sleep.[161] Aldrin next to the Passive Seismic Experiment Package with Eagle in the background Presidential speech writer William Safire had prepared an In Event of Moon Disaster announcement for Nixon to read in the event the Apollo 11 astronauts were stranded on the Moon.[162] The remarks were in a memo from Safire to Nixon's White House Chief of Staff H. R. Haldeman, in which Safire suggested a protocol the administration might follow in reaction to such a disaster.[163][164] According to the plan, Mission Control would "close down communications" with the LM, and a clergyman would "commend their souls to the deepest of the deep" in a public ritual likened to burial at sea. The last line of the prepared text contained an allusion to Rupert Brooke's First World War poem, "The Soldier".[164] While moving inside the cabin, Aldrin accidentally damaged the circuit breaker that would arm the main engine for liftoff from the Moon. There was a concern this would prevent firing the engine, stranding them on the Moon. A felt-tip pen was sufficient to activate the switch.[161] After more than 21+1⁄2 hours on the lunar surface, in addition to the scientific instruments, the astronauts left behind: an Apollo 1 mission patch in memory of astronauts Roger Chaffee, Gus Grissom, and Edward White, who died when their command module caught fire during a test in January 1967; two memorial medals of Soviet cosmonauts Vladimir Komarov and Yuri Gagarin, who died in 1967 and 1968 respectively; a memorial bag containing a gold replica of an olive branch as a traditional symbol of peace; and a silicon message disk carrying the goodwill statements by Presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon along with messages from leaders of 73 countries around the world.[165] The disk also carries a listing of the leadership of the US Congress, a listing of members of the four committees of the House and Senate responsible for the NASA legislation, and the names of NASA's past and then-current top management.[166] Map showing landing site and photos taken After about seven hours of rest, the crew was awakened by Houston to prepare for the return flight. Two and a half hours later, at 17:54:00 UTC, they lifted off in Eagle's ascent stage to rejoin Collins aboard Columbia in lunar orbit.[143] Film taken from the LM ascent stage upon liftoff from the Moon reveals the American flag, planted some 25 feet (8 m) from the descent stage, whipping violently in the exhaust of the ascent stage engine. Aldrin looked up in time to witness the flag topple: "The ascent stage of the LM separated ... I was concentrating on the computers, and Neil was studying the attitude indicator, but I looked up long enough to see the flag fall over."[167] Subsequent Apollo missions planted their flags farther from the LM.[168] Columbia in lunar orbit During his day flying solo around the Moon, Collins never felt lonely. Although it has been said "not since Adam has any human known such solitude",[169] Collins felt very much a part of the mission. In his autobiography he wrote: "this venture has been structured for three men, and I consider my third to be as necessary as either of the other two".[169] In the 48 minutes of each orbit when he was out of radio contact with the Earth while Columbia passed round the far side of the Moon, the feeling he reported was not fear or loneliness, but rather "awareness, anticipation, satisfaction, confidence, almost exultation".[169] One of Collins' first tasks was to identify the lunar module on the ground. To give Collins an idea where to look, Mission Control radioed that they believed the lunar module landed about 4 miles (6.4 km) off target. Each time he passed over the suspected lunar landing site, he tried in vain to find the module. On his first orbits on the back side of the Moon, Collins performed maintenance activities such as dumping excess water produced by the fuel cells and preparing the cabin for Armstrong and Aldrin to return.[170] Just before he reached the dark side on the third orbit, Mission Control informed Collins there was a problem with the temperature of the coolant. If it became too cold, parts of Columbia might freeze. Mission Control advised him to assume manual control and implement Environmental Control System Malfunction Procedure 17. Instead, Collins flicked the switch on the system from automatic to manual and back to automatic again, and carried on with normal housekeeping chores, while keeping an eye on the temperature. When Columbia came back around to the near side of the Moon again, he was able to report that the problem had been resolved. For the next couple of orbits, he described his time on the back side of the Moon as "relaxing". After Aldrin and Armstrong completed their EVA, Collins slept so he could be rested for the rendezvous. While the flight plan called for Eagle to meet up with Columbia, Collins was prepared for a contingency in which he would fly Columbia down to meet Eagle.[171] Return Eagle's ascent stage approaching Columbia Eagle rendezvoused with Columbia at 21:24 UTC on July 21, and the two docked at 21:35. Eagle's ascent stage was jettisoned into lunar orbit at 23:41.[7] Just before the Apollo 12 flight, it was noted that Eagle was still likely to be orbiting the Moon. Later NASA reports mentioned that Eagle's orbit had decayed, resulting in it impacting in an "uncertain location" on the lunar surface.[172] In 2021, however, some calculations show that lander may still be in orbit.[173] On July 23, the last night before splashdown, the three astronauts made a television broadcast in which Collins commented:      ... The Saturn V rocket which put us in orbit is an incredibly complicated piece of machinery, every piece of which worked flawlessly ... We have always had confidence that this equipment will work properly. All this is possible only through the blood, sweat, and tears of a number of people ... All you see is the three of us, but beneath the surface are thousands and thousands of others, and to all of those, I would like to say, "Thank you very much."[174] Aldrin added:     This has been far more than three men on a mission to the Moon; more, still, than the efforts of a government and industry team; more, even, than the efforts of one nation. We feel that this stands as a symbol of the insatiable curiosity of all mankind to explore the unknown ... Personally, in reflecting on the events of the past several days, a verse from Psalms comes to mind. "When I consider the heavens, the work of Thy fingers, the Moon and the stars, which Thou hast ordained; What is man that Thou art mindful of him?"[174][175] Armstrong concluded:     The responsibility for this flight lies first with history and with the giants of science who have preceded this effort; next with the American people, who have, through their will, indicated their desire; next with four administrations and their Congresses, for implementing that will; and then, with the agency and industry teams that built our spacecraft, the Saturn, the Columbia, the Eagle, and the little EMU, the spacesuit and backpack that was our small spacecraft out on the lunar surface. We would like to give special thanks to all those Americans who built the spacecraft; who did the construction, design, the tests, and put their hearts and all their abilities into those craft. To those people tonight, we give a special thank you, and to all the other people that are listening and watching tonight, God bless you. Good night from Apollo 11.[174] On the return to Earth, a bearing at the Guam tracking station failed, potentially preventing communication on the last segment of the Earth return. A regular repair was not possible in the available time but the station director, Charles Force, had his ten-year-old son Greg use his small hands to reach into the housing and pack it with grease. Greg was later thanked by Armstrong.[176] Splashdown and quarantine Columbia floats on the ocean as Navy divers assist in retrieving the astronauts The aircraft carrier USS Hornet, under the command of Captain Carl J. Seiberlich,[177] was selected as the primary recovery ship (PRS) for Apollo 11 on June 5, replacing its sister ship, the LPH USS Princeton, which had recovered Apollo 10 on May 26. Hornet was then at her home port of Long Beach, California.[178] On reaching Pearl Harbor on July 5, Hornet embarked the Sikorsky SH-3 Sea King helicopters of HS-4, a unit which specialized in recovery of Apollo spacecraft, specialized divers of UDT Detachment Apollo, a 35-man NASA recovery team, and about 120 media representatives. To make room, most of Hornet's air wing was left behind in Long Beach. Special recovery equipment was also loaded, including a boilerplate command module used for training.[179] On July 12, with Apollo 11 still on the launch pad, Hornet departed Pearl Harbor for the recovery area in the central Pacific,[180] in the vicinity of 10°36′N 172°24′E.[181] A presidential party consisting of Nixon, Borman, Secretary of State William P. Rogers and National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger flew to Johnston Atoll on Air Force One, then to the command ship USS Arlington in Marine One. After a night on board, they would fly to Hornet in Marine One for a few hours of ceremonies. On arrival aboard Hornet, the party was greeted by the Commander-in-Chief, Pacific Command (CINCPAC), Admiral John S. McCain Jr., and NASA Administrator Thomas O. Paine, who flew to Hornet from Pago Pago in one of Hornet's carrier onboard delivery aircraft.[182] Weather satellites were not yet common, but US Air Force Captain Hank Brandli had access to top-secret spy satellite images. He realized that a storm front was headed for the Apollo recovery area. Poor visibility which could make locating the capsule difficult, and strong upper-level winds which "would have ripped their parachutes to shreds" according to Brandli, posed a serious threat to the safety of the mission.[183] Brandli alerted Navy Captain Willard S. Houston Jr., the commander of the Fleet Weather Center at Pearl Harbor, who had the required security clearance. On their recommendation, Rear Admiral Donald C. Davis, commander of Manned Spaceflight Recovery Forces, Pacific, advised NASA to change the recovery area, each man risking his career. A new location was selected 215 nautical miles (398 km) northeast.[184][185] This altered the flight plan. A different sequence of computer programs was used, one never before attempted. In a conventional entry, trajectory event P64 was followed by P67. For a skip-out re-entry, P65 and P66 were employed to handle the exit and entry parts of the skip. In this case, because they were extending the re-entry but not actually skipping out, P66 was not invoked and instead, P65 led directly to P67. The crew were also warned they would not be in a full-lift (heads-down) attitude when they entered P67.[184] The first program's acceleration subjected the astronauts to 6.5 standard gravities (64 m/s2); the second, to 6.0 standard gravities (59 m/s2).[186] Before dawn on July 24, Hornet launched four Sea King helicopters and three Grumman E-1 Tracers. Two of the E-1s were designated as "air boss" while the third acted as a communications relay aircraft. Two of the Sea Kings carried divers and recovery equipment. The third carried photographic equipment, and the fourth carried the decontamination swimmer and the flight surgeon.[187] At 16:44 UTC (05:44 local time) Columbia's drogue parachutes were deployed. This was observed by the helicopters. Seven minutes later Columbia struck the water forcefully 2,660 km (1,440 nmi) east of Wake Island, 380 km (210 nmi) south of Johnston Atoll, and 24 km (13 nmi) from Hornet,[7][184] at 13°19′N 169°9′W.[188] 82 °F (28 °C) with 6 feet (1.8 m) seas and winds at 17 knots (31 km/h; 20 mph) from the east were reported under broken clouds at 1,500 feet (460 m) with visibility of 10 nautical miles (19 km; 12 mi) at the recovery site.[189] Reconnaissance aircraft flying to the original splashdown location reported the conditions Brandli and Houston had predicted.[190] During splashdown, Columbia landed upside down but was righted within ten minutes by flotation bags activated by the astronauts.[191] A diver from the Navy helicopter hovering above attached a sea anchor to prevent it from drifting.[192] More divers attached flotation collars to stabilize the module and positioned rafts for astronaut extraction.[193] Crew of Apollo 11 in quarantine after returning to Earth, visited by Richard Nixon Apollo 11 Mobile Quarantine Facility on display at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in 2009 The divers then passed biological isolation garments (BIGs) to the astronauts, and assisted them into the life raft. The possibility of bringing back pathogens from the lunar surface was considered remote, but NASA took precautions at the recovery site. The astronauts were rubbed down with a sodium hypochlorite solution and Columbia wiped with Povidone-iodine to remove any lunar dust that might be present. The astronauts were winched on board the recovery helicopter. BIGs were worn until they reached isolation facilities on board Hornet. The raft containing decontamination materials was intentionally sunk.[191] After touchdown on Hornet at 17:53 UTC, the helicopter was lowered by the elevator into the hangar bay, where the astronauts walked the 30 feet (9.1 m) to the Mobile quarantine facility (MQF), where they would begin the Earth-based portion of their 21 days of quarantine.[194] This practice would continue for two more Apollo missions, Apollo 12 and Apollo 14, before the Moon was proven to be barren of life, and the quarantine process dropped.[195][196] Nixon welcomed the astronauts back to Earth. He told them: "[A]s a result of what you've done, the world has never been closer together before."[197] After Nixon departed, Hornet was brought alongside the 5-short-ton (4.5 t) Columbia, which was lifted aboard by the ship's crane, placed on a dolly and moved next to the MQF. It was then attached to the MQF with a flexible tunnel, allowing the lunar samples, film, data tapes and other items to be removed. Hornet returned to Pearl Harbor, where the MQF was loaded onto a Lockheed C-141 Starlifter and airlifted to the Manned Spacecraft Center. The astronauts arrived at the Lunar Receiving Laboratory at 10:00 UTC on July 28. Columbia was taken to Ford Island for deactivation, and its pyrotechnics made safe. It was then taken to Hickham Air Force Base, from whence it was flown to Houston in a Douglas C-133 Cargomaster, reaching the Lunar Receiving Laboratory on July 30.[198] In accordance with the Extra-Terrestrial Exposure Law, a set of regulations promulgated by NASA on July 16 to codify its quarantine protocol,[199] the astronauts continued in quarantine. After three weeks in confinement (first in the Apollo spacecraft, then in their trailer on Hornet, and finally in the Lunar Receiving Laboratory), the astronauts were given a clean bill of health.[200] On August 10, 1969, the Interagency Committee on Back Contamination met in Atlanta and lifted the quarantine on the astronauts, on those who had joined them in quarantine (NASA physician William Carpentier and MQF project engineer John Hirasaki),[201] and on Columbia itself. Loose equipment from the spacecraft remained in isolation until the lunar samples were released for study.[202] Celebrations Ticker tape parade in New York City On August 13, the three astronauts rode in ticker-tape parades in their honor in New York and Chicago, with an estimated six million attendees.[203][204] On the same evening in Los Angeles there was an official state dinner to celebrate the flight, attended by members of Congress, 44 governors, Chief Justice of the United States Warren E. Burger and his predecessor, Earl Warren, and ambassadors from 83 nations at the Century Plaza Hotel. Nixon and Agnew honored each astronaut with a presentation of the Presidential Medal of Freedom.[203][205] The three astronauts spoke before a joint session of Congress on September 16, 1969. They presented two US flags, one to the House of Representatives and the other to the Senate, that they had carried with them to the surface of the Moon.[206] The flag of American Samoa on Apollo 11 is on display at the Jean P. Haydon Museum in Pago Pago, the capital of American Samoa.[207] This celebration began a 38-day world tour that brought the astronauts to 22 foreign countries and included visits with the leaders of many countries.[208] The crew toured from September 29 to November 5.[208][209][210] Many nations honored the first human Moon landing with special features in magazines or by issuing Apollo 11 commemorative postage stamps or coins.[211] Legacy Cultural significance Main article: Apollo 11 in popular culture Humans walking on the Moon and returning safely to Earth accomplished Kennedy's goal set eight years earlier. In Mission Control during the Apollo 11 landing, Kennedy's speech flashed on the screen, followed by the words "TASK ACCOMPLISHED, July 1969".[212] The success of Apollo 11 demonstrated the United States' technological superiority;[212] and with the success of Apollo 11, America had won the Space Race.[213][214] New phrases permeated into the English language. "If they can send a man to the Moon, why can't they ...?" became a common saying following Apollo 11.[215] Armstrong's words on the lunar surface also spun off various parodies.[213] While most people celebrated the accomplishment, disenfranchised Americans saw it as a symbol of the divide in America, evidenced by protesters led by Ralph Abernathy outside of Kennedy Space Center the day before Apollo 11 launched.[216] NASA Administrator Thomas Paine met with Abernathy at the occasion, both hoping that the space program can spur progress also in other regards, such as poverty in the US.[217] Paine was then asked, and agreed, to host protesters as spectators at the launch,[217] and Abernathy, awestruck by the spectacle,[105] prayed for the astronauts.[217] Racial and financial inequalities frustrated citizens who wondered why money spent on the Apollo program was not spent taking care of humans on Earth. A poem by Gil Scott-Heron called "Whitey on the Moon" (1970) illustrated the racial inequality in the United States that was highlighted by the Space Race.[213][218][219] The poem starts with:     A rat done bit my sister Nell.     (with Whitey on the moon)     Her face and arms began to swell.     (and Whitey's on the moon)     I can't pay no doctor bill.     (but Whitey's on the moon)     Ten years from now I'll be paying still.     (while Whitey's on the moon)     [...][219] Twenty percent of the world's population watched humans walk on the Moon for the first time. While Apollo 11 sparked the interest of the world, the follow-on Apollo missions did not hold the interest of the nation.[212] One possible explanation was the shift in complexity. Landing someone on the Moon was an easy goal to understand; lunar geology was too abstract for the average person. Another is that Kennedy's goal of landing humans on the Moon had already been accomplished.[220] A well-defined objective helped Project Apollo accomplish its goal, but after it was completed it was hard to justify continuing the lunar missions.[221][222] While most Americans were proud of their nation's achievements in space exploration, only once during the late 1960s did the Gallup Poll indicate that a majority of Americans favored "doing more" in space as opposed to "doing less". By 1973, 59 percent of those polled favored cutting spending on space exploration. The Space Race had been won, and Cold War tensions were easing as the US and Soviet Union entered the era of détente. This was also a time when inflation was rising, which put pressure on the government to reduce spending. What saved the space program was that it was one of the few government programs that had achieved something great. Drastic cuts, warned Caspar Weinberger, the deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget, might send a signal that "our best years are behind us".[223] After the Apollo 11 mission, officials from the Soviet Union said landing humans on the Moon was dangerous and unnecessary. At the time the Soviet Union was attempting to retrieve lunar samples robotically. The Soviets publicly denied there was a race to the Moon, and indicated they were not making an attempt.[224] Mstislav Keldysh said in July 1969, "We are concentrating wholly on the creation of large satellite systems." It was revealed in 1989 that the Soviets had tried to send people to the Moon, but were unable due to technological difficulties.[225] The public's reaction in the Soviet Union was mixed. The Soviet government limited the release of information about the lunar landing, which affected the reaction. A portion of the populace did not give it any attention, and another portion was angered by it.[226] The Apollo 11 landing is referenced in the songs "Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins" by The Byrds on the 1969 album Ballad of Easy Rider and "Coon on the Moon" by Howlin' Wolf on the 1973 album The Back Door Wolf. Spacecraft Columbia on display in the Milestones of Flight exhibition hall at the National Air and Space Museum The command module Columbia went on a tour of the United States, visiting 49 state capitals, the District of Columbia, and Anchorage, Alaska.[227] In 1971, it was transferred to the Smithsonian Institution, and was displayed at the National Air and Space Museum (NASM) in Washington, DC.[228] It was in the central Milestones of Flight exhibition hall in front of the Jefferson Drive entrance, sharing the main hall with other pioneering flight vehicles such as the Wright Flyer, Spirit of St. Louis, Bell X-1, North American X-15 and Friendship 7.[229] Columbia was moved in 2017 to the NASM Mary Baker Engen Restoration Hangar at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Virginia, to be readied for a four-city tour titled Destination Moon: The Apollo 11 Mission. This included Space Center Houston from October 14, 2017, to March 18, 2018, the Saint Louis Science Center from April 14 to September 3, 2018, the Senator John Heinz History Center in Pittsburgh from September 29, 2018, to February 18, 2019, and its last location at Museum of Flight in Seattle from March 16 to September 2, 2019.[228][230] Continued renovations at the Smithsonian allowed time for an additional stop for the capsule, and it was moved to the Cincinnati Museum Center. The ribbon cutting ceremony was on September 29, 2019.[231] For 40 years Armstrong's and Aldrin's space suits were displayed in the museum's Apollo to the Moon exhibit,[232] until it permanently closed on December 3, 2018, to be replaced by a new gallery which was scheduled to open in 2022. A special display of Armstrong's suit was unveiled for the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11 in July 2019.[233][234] The quarantine trailer, the flotation collar and the flotation bags are in the Smithsonian's Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center annex near Washington Dulles International Airport in Chantilly, Virginia, where they are on display along with a test lunar module.[235][236][237] The descent stage of the LM Eagle remains on the Moon. In 2009, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) imaged the various Apollo landing sites on the surface of the Moon, for the first time with sufficient resolution to see the descent stages of the lunar modules, scientific instruments, and foot trails made by the astronauts.[238] The remains of the ascent stage lie at an unknown location on the lunar surface, after being abandoned and impacting the Moon. The location is uncertain because Eagle ascent stage was not tracked after it was jettisoned, and the lunar gravity field is sufficiently non-uniform to make the orbit of the spacecraft unpredictable after a short time.[239] F-1 Engine Injector Plate on temporary display at the Cincinnati Museum Center in 2019 In March 2012 a team of specialists financed by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos located the F-1 engines from the S-IC stage that launched Apollo 11 into space. They were found on the Atlantic seabed using advanced sonar scanning.[240] His team brought parts of two of the five engines to the surface. In July 2013, a conservator discovered a serial number under the rust on one of the engines raised from the Atlantic, which NASA confirmed was from Apollo 11.[241][242] The S-IVB third stage which performed Apollo 11's trans-lunar injection remains in a solar orbit near to that of Earth.[243] Pieces of fabric and wood from the first airplane, the 1903 Wright Flyer, traveled to the Moon in the lunar module and are displayed at the Wright Brothers National Memorial Moon rocks The main repository for the Apollo Moon rocks is the Lunar Sample Laboratory Facility at the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. For safekeeping, there is also a smaller collection stored at White Sands Test Facility near Las Cruces, New Mexico. Most of the rocks are stored in nitrogen to keep them free of moisture. They are handled only indirectly, using special tools. Over 100 research laboratories around the world conduct studies of the samples, and approximately 500 samples are prepared and sent to investigators every year.[244][245] In November 1969, Nixon asked NASA to make up about 250 presentation Apollo 11 lunar sample displays for 135 nations, the fifty states of the United States and its possessions, and the United Nations. Each display included Moon dust from Apollo 11. The rice-sized particles were four small pieces of Moon soil weighing about 50 mg and were enveloped in a clear acrylic button about as big as a United States half dollar coin. This acrylic button magnified the grains of lunar dust. The Apollo 11 lunar sample displays were given out as goodwill gifts by Nixon in 1970.[246][247] Experiment results The Passive Seismic Experiment ran until the command uplink failed on August 25, 1969. The downlink failed on December 14, 1969.[248] As of 2018, the Lunar Laser Ranging experiment remains operational.[249] Armstrong's camera Armstrong's Hasselblad camera was thought to be lost or left on the Moon surface.[250] LM memorabilia In 2015, after Armstrong died in 2012, his widow contacted the National Air and Space Museum to inform them she had found a white cloth bag in one of Armstrong's closets. The bag contained various items, which should have been left behind in the lunar module, including the 16mm Data Acquisition Camera that had been used to capture images of the first Moon landing.[251][252] The camera is currently on display at the National Air and Space Museum.[253] Anniversary events Further information: Apollo 11 anniversaries 40th anniversary Columbia at the Mary Baker Engen Restoration Hangar On July 15, 2009, Life.com released a photo gallery of previously unpublished photos of the astronauts taken by Life photographer Ralph Morse prior to the Apollo 11 launch.[254] From July 16 to 24, 2009, NASA streamed the original mission audio on its website in real time 40 years to the minute after the events occurred.[255] It is in the process of restoring the video footage and has released a preview of key moments.[256] In July 2010, air-to-ground voice recordings and film footage shot in Mission Control during the Apollo 11 powered descent and landing was re-synchronized and released for the first time.[257] The John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum set up an Adobe Flash website that rebroadcasts the transmissions of Apollo 11 from launch to landing on the Moon.[258] On July 20, 2009, Armstrong, Aldrin, and Collins met with US President Barack Obama at the White House.[259] "We expect that there is, as we speak, another generation of kids out there who are looking up at the sky and are going to be the next Armstrong, Collins, and Aldrin", Obama said. "We want to make sure that NASA is going to be there for them when they want to take their journey."[260] On August 7, 2009, an act of Congress awarded the three astronauts a Congressional Gold Medal, the highest civilian award in the United States. The bill was sponsored by Florida Senator Bill Nelson and Florida Representative Alan Grayson.[261][262] A group of British scientists interviewed as part of the anniversary events reflected on the significance of the Moon landing:     It was carried out in a technically brilliant way with risks taken ... that would be inconceivable in the risk-averse world of today ... The Apollo programme is arguably the greatest technical achievement of mankind to date ... nothing since Apollo has come close [to] the excitement that was generated by those astronauts—Armstrong, Aldrin and the 10 others who followed them.[263] 50th anniversary Further information: Apollo 11 50th Anniversary commemorative coins On June 10, 2015, Congressman Bill Posey introduced resolution H.R. 2726 to the 114th session of the United States House of Representatives directing the United States Mint to design and sell commemorative coins in gold, silver and clad for the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission. On January 24, 2019, the Mint released the Apollo 11 Fiftieth Anniversary commemorative coins to the public on its website.[264][265] A documentary film, Apollo 11, with restored footage of the 1969 event, premiered in IMAX on March 1, 2019, and broadly in theaters on March 8.[266][267] The Smithsonian Institute's National Air and Space Museum and NASA sponsored the "Apollo 50 Festival" on the National Mall in Washington DC. The three day (July 18 to 20, 2019) outdoor festival featured hands-on exhibits and activities, live performances, and speakers such as Adam Savage and NASA scientists.[268] Saturn V rocket projected onto the Washington Monument during the Apollo 11 50th anniversary show As part of the festival, a projection of the 363-foot (111 m) tall Saturn V rocket was displayed on the east face of the 555-foot (169 m) tall Washington Monument from July 16 through the 20th from 9:30 pm until 11:30 pm (EDT). The program also included a 17-minute show that combined full-motion video projected on the Washington Monument to recreate the assembly and launch of the Saturn V rocket. The projection was joined by a 40-foot (12 m) wide recreation of the Kennedy Space Center countdown clock and two large video screens showing archival footage to recreate the time leading up to the moon landing. There were three shows per night on July 19–20, with the last show on Saturday, delayed slightly so the portion where Armstrong first set foot on the Moon would happen exactly 50 years to the second after the actual event.[269] On July 19, 2019, the Google Doodle paid tribute to the Apollo 11 Moon Landing, complete with a link to an animated YouTube video with voiceover by astronaut Michael Collins.[270][271] Aldrin, Collins, and Armstrong's sons were hosted by President Donald Trump in the Oval Office.[272][273] Films and documentaries     Footprints on the Moon, a 1969 documentary film by Bill Gibson and Barry Coe, about the Apollo 11 mission[274]     Moonwalk One, a 1971 documentary film by Theo Kamecke[275]     Apollo 11: As it Happened, a 1994 six-hour documentary on ABC News' coverage of the event[276]     Apollo 11, a 2019 documentary film by Todd Douglas Miller with restored footage of the 1969 event[277][278]     Chasing the Moon, a July 2019 PBS three-night six-hour documentary, directed by Robert Stone, examined the events leading up to the Apollo 11 mission. An accompanying book of the same name was also released.[279]     8 Days: To the Moon and Back, a PBS and BBC Studios 2019 documentary film by Anthony Philipson re-enacting major portions of the Apollo 11 mission using mission audio recordings, new studio footage, NASA and news archives, and computer-generated imagery.[280] See also Apollo 11 insignia.png Part of a series on Apollo 11     Crew         Neil Armstrong · Buzz Aldrin · Michael Collins     Spacecraft         CM-107 Columbia · LM-5 Eagle     Landing site         Tranquility Base     Recovery vessels         Helicopter 66 · USS Hornet     Commemoration         Anniversaries · 50th Anniversary commemorative coins · Eisenhower dollar · Anthony dollar     Related         British TV coverage · Goodwill messages · In popular culture · Lunar sample display · Missing tapes     vte     Apollo in Real Time – Interactive website of Apollo 11, 13, and 17     Exploration of the Moon – Various missions to the Moon     List of missions to the Moon     Moon landing conspiracy theories References Notes     Eric Jones of the Apollo Lunar Surface Journal explains that the indefinite article "a" was intended, whether or not it was said; the intention was to contrast a man (an individual's action) and mankind (as a species).[12] Citations In some of the following sources, times are shown in the format hours:minutes:seconds (e.g. 109:24:15), referring to the mission's Ground Elapsed Time (GET),[281] based on the official launch time of July 16, 1969, 13:32:00 UTC (000:00:00 GET).[103][4] Byrne., Dave (July 8, 2019). 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Space and the American Imagination. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press. ISBN 978-1-56098-764-2. OCLC 36186250.     Mindell, David A. (2008). Digital Apollo: Human and Machine in Spaceflight. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press. ISBN 978-0-262-13497-2. LCCN 2007032255. OCLC 751829782.     Orloff, Richard W. (2000). Apollo by the Numbers: A Statistical Reference. NASA History Series. Washington, D.C.: NASA History Division, Office of Policy and Plans. ISBN 978-0-16-050631-4. LCCN 00061677. OCLC 829406439. SP-2000-4029. Archived from the original on August 23, 2007. Retrieved June 12, 2013.     Sarkissian, John M. (2001). "On Eagle's Wings: The Parkes Observatory's Support of the Apollo 11 Mission". Publications of the Astronomical Society of Australia. 18 (3): 287–310. Bibcode:2001PASA...18..287S. doi:10.1071/AS01038. Archived from the original on March 23, 2020. Retrieved May 24, 2013.     Schefter, James (July 1999). The Race: The Uncensored Story of How America Beat Russia to the Moon. New York: Doubleday. ISBN 978-0-385-49253-9.     Slayton, Donald K. "Deke"; Cassutt, Michael (1994). Deke! U.S. Manned Space: From Mercury to the Shuttle. New York: Forge. ISBN 978-0-312-85503-1. LCCN 94002463. OCLC 29845663.     Swenson, Loyd S. Jr.; Grimwood, James M.; Alexander, Charles C. (1966). This New Ocean: A History of Project Mercury. The NASA History Series. Washington, D.C.: National Aeronautics and Space Administration. OCLC 569889. SP-4201. Archived from the original on June 17, 2010. Retrieved June 28, 2007. External links     Wikimedia Commons has media related to Apollo 11.     Wikiquote has quotations related to: Apollo 11     Wikisource has original text related to this article: In Event of Moon Disaster Listen to this article (1 hour and 29 minutes) Menu 0:00 Spoken Wikipedia icon This audio file was created from a revision of this article dated 13 July 2020, and does not reflect subsequent edits. (Audio help · More spoken articles)     "Apollo 11 transcripts" at Spacelog     Apollo 11 in real time Multimedia     Garner, Robert (ed.). "Apollo 11 Partial Restoration HD Videos (Downloads)". NASA. Retrieved June 13, 2013.—Remastered videos of the original landing.     Dynamic timeline of lunar excursion. Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera     The short film Moonwalk One is available for free download at the Internet Archive.     The short film The Eagle Has Landed: The Flight of Apollo 11 is available for free download at the Internet Archive.     Apollo 11 Restored EVA Part 1 (1h of restored footage)     Apollo 11: As They Photographed It (Augmented Reality) The New York Times, Interactive, July 18, 2019     "Coverage of the Flight of Apollo 11" provided by Todd Kosovich for RadioTapes.com. Radio station recordings (airchecks) covering the flight of Apollo 11.     vte Apollo program     List of missions         canceled missions List of Apollo astronauts Launch complexes         Launch Complex 34 Launch Complex 37 Launch Complex 39         A B      Emblem of the Apollo program Ground facilities         Mission Control Center Cape Kennedy Air Force Station Kennedy Space Center Manned Space Flight Network Launch vehicles         Little Joe II Saturn         Saturn I Saturn IB Saturn V Spacecraft and rover         Apollo spacecraft         Command and Service Module Lunar Module Lunar Roving Vehicle Flights     Uncrewed         AS-101 AS-102 AS-201 AS-202 Apollo 4 Apollo 5 Apollo 6† Crewed         Apollo 1† Apollo 7 Apollo 8 Apollo 9 Apollo 10 Apollo 11 Apollo 12 Apollo 13† Apollo 14 Apollo 15 Apollo 16 Apollo 17 Saturn development         Saturn-Apollo 1 SA-2 SA-3 SA-4 SA-5 AS-203 Apollo 4 Apollo 6† Abort tests         QTV Pad Abort Test-1 A-001 A-002 A-003 Pad Abort Test-2 A-004 Pegasus flights         AS-103 AS-104 AS-105 Apollo 8 specific         Earthrise Genesis reading Apollo 11 specific         Command Module Columbia Lunar Module Eagle Tranquility Base Goodwill messages Lunar sample displays Missing tapes Anniversaries         50th Anniversary commemorative coins In popular culture Apollo 12 specific         Statio Cognitum         Surveyor 3 Surveyor crater Bench Crater meteorite J002E3 Moon Museum Reports of Streptococcus mitis on the Moon Apollo 13 specific         "Houston, we've had a problem" Apollo 14 specific         Modular Equipment Transporter Fra Mauro formation Big Bertha Moon tree Apollo 15 specific         Journey Lunar operations Solo operations Return to Earth Hadley–Apennine Fallen Astronaut Genesis Rock Great Scott Hadley Rille meteorite Seatbelt basalt Postal covers incident Apollo 16 specific         Big Muley Apollo 17 specific         The Blue Marble Taurus–Littrow Tracy's Rock Nansen-Apollo crater Shorty crater Lunar sample display         Lunar basalt 70017 Troctolite 76535 Fe, Fi, Fo, Fum, and Phooey Post-Apollo capsule use         Skylab         2 3 4 Apollo-Soyuz     Symbol † indicates failure or partial failure     vte Spacecraft missions to the Moon Exploration programs         American         Apollo Artemis CLPS Lunar Orbiter Lunar Precursor Pioneer Ranger Surveyor Chinese (Chang'e) Indian (Chandrayaan) Japanese Russian         Luna-Glob Soviet         Crewed Luna Lunokhod Zond Active missions     Orbiters         ARTEMIS Chang'e 5-T1 (service module) Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Queqiao (relay satellite at L2) Chandrayaan-2 Orbiter Landers         Chang'e 3 Chang'e 4 Rovers         Yutu-2 Past missions     Crewed landings         Apollo 11 12 14 15 16 17 (List of Apollo astronauts) Orbiters         Apollo 8 10         Apollo Lunar Module Chang'e 1 2 5 Chandrayaan-1 Clementine Explorer 35 49 GRAIL Hiten LADEE Longjiang-2 Luna 10 11 12 14 19 22 Lunar Orbiter 1 2 3 4 5 Lunar Prospector PFS-1 PFS-2 SMART-1 SELENE (Kaguya, Okina, Ouna) Impactors         LCROSS Luna 2 Moon Impact Probe Ranger 4 6 7 8 9 Landers         Apollo Lunar Module ×6 Chang'e 5 Luna 9 13 16 17 20 21 23 24 Surveyor 1 3 5 6 7 Rovers         Lunar Roving Vehicle         Apollo 15 16 17 Lunokhod 1 2 Yutu Sample return         Apollo 11 12 14 15 16 17 Luna 16 20 24 Chang'e 5 Failed landings         Surveyor 2 4 Luna 5 7 8 15 18 Beresheet Vikram / Pragyan Flybys         4M Apollo 13 AsiaSat-3 / HGS-1 Chang'e 5-T1 / Xiaofei Geotail Galileo ICE Longjiang-1 Luna 1 3 4 6 Mariner 10 Nozomi Pioneer 4 Ranger 5 STEREO TESS WMAP Wind Zond 3 5 6 7 8 PAS-22 Planned missions     Artemis         Artemis 1 (2022)         ArgoMoon BioSentinel CuSP EQUULEUS LunaH-Map Lunar IceCube NEA Scout OMOTENASHI LunIR Team Miles Artemis 2 (2024) Lunar Gateway Artemis 3 (2025) Artemis 4 (2026) Artemis 5 (2027) Artemis 6 (2028) Artemis 7 (2029) Artemis 8 (2030) CLPS         CAPSTONE (May 2022) IM-1 (Q3 2022) Peregrine M1 (2022)         Asagumo CubeRover Uni XL-1 (Nov 2023)         MoonRanger VIPER (Nov 2023) Blue Ghost (2023) Luna-Glob         Luna 25 (Jul 2022) Luna 26 (2024) Luna 27 (Aug 2025) Luna 28 (2027) Luna 29 (2028) Luna 30 (2030s) Luna 31 (2030s) CLEP         Queqiao2 (2024) Chang'e 6 (2024) Chang'e 7 (2024) Chang'e 8 (2027) Others         SLIM (2022) KPLO (Aug 2022) Hakuto-R M1 (2022) Cislunar Explorers (2022) CU-E3 (2022) Lunar Flashlight (2022) Chandrayaan-3 (2023) #dearMoon project (2023) Beresheet 2 (2024) DESTINY+ (2024) Hakuto-R M2 (2024) ispace M3 (2024) Lunar Pathfinder (2024) Lunar Trailblazer (2025) International Lunar Research Station (mid-late 2020s) Proposed missions     Robotic         Lunar Polar Exploration Mission ALINA Artemis-7 Blue Moon BOLAS Garatéa-L ISOCHRON Lunar Crater Radio Telescope McCandless Moon Diver Crewed         DSE-Alpha Boeing Lunar Lander Lockheed Martin Lunar Lander Lunar Orbital Station Cancelled / concepts         Altair Baden-Württemberg 1 European Lunar Explorer First Lunar Outpost International Lunar Network LEO LK Lunar-A Lunar Lander Lunar Mission One Lunar Observer Lunokhod 3 MoonLITE MoonRise OrbitBeyond Project Harvest Moon Prospector Resource Prospector SELENE-2 Ukrselena See also         Colonization of the Moon Google Lunar X Prize List of lunar probes List of missions to the Moon List of artificial objects on the Moon Lunar resources Apollo 17 Moon mice Moon landing conspiracy theories Apollo 11 anniversaries List of crewed lunar lander designs     Missions are ordered by launch date. Crewed missions are in italics.     vte ← 1968  ·  Orbital launches in 1969  ·  1970 → Venera 5 | Venera 6 | Kosmos 263 | Soyuz 4 | Soyuz 5 | 7K-L1 No.13L | OSO-5 | OPS 7585 | Kosmos 264 | US-A No.5 | Isis 1 | Meteor-1 No.11 | OPS 3890 · OPS 2644 | Intelsat III F-3 | Kosmos 265 | OPS 0757 | Luna E-8 No.201 | 7K-L1S No.3 | Mariner 6 | Kosmos 266 | ESSA-9 | Kosmos 267 | Apollo 9 | OPS 4248 | Kosmos 268 | Kosmos 269 | Kosmos 270 | Kosmos 271 | Kosmos 272 | OV1-17 · OV1-18 · OV1-19 · Orbiscal 2 | OPS 3722 · OPS 2285 | Kosmos 273 | Kosmos 274 | Meteor-1 No.12 | 2M No.521 | Mariner 7 | Kosmos 275 | 2M No.522 | Kosmos 276 | Kosmos 277 | Kosmos 278 | Molniya-1 No.16 | OPS 3148 | Nimbus 3 · SECOR 13 | Kosmos 279 | OPS 5310 | Kosmos 280 | OPS 1101 · OPS 1721 | Kosmos 281 | Apollo 10 | Kosmos 282 | Intelsat III F-4 | OPS 6909 · OPS 6911 · ERS-29 · ERS-26 · OV5-9 | Kosmos 283 | Kosmos 284 | Kosmos 285 | OPS 1077 | OGO-6 | Luna E-8-5 No.402 | Kosmos 286 | Explorer 41 | Kosmos 287 | Kosmos 288 | Biosatellite 3 | STV-2 | 7K-L1S No.5 | Kosmos 289 | Luna 15 | Apollo 11 | Kosmos 290 | Molniya-1 No.18 | OPS 1127 | DS-P1-Yu No.23 | OPS 3654 | Intelsat III F-5 | OPS 8285 | Kosmos 291 | Zond 7 | OSO-6 · PAC-1 | ATS-5 | Kosmos 292 | Kosmos 293 | Kosmos 294 | Kosmos 295 | OPS 7807 | Pioneer E · ERS-32 | Kosmos 296 | Kosmos 297 | Kosmos 298 | Kosmos 299 | Unnamed | OPS 3531 · OPS 4710 | Kosmos 300 | Kosmos 301 | OPS 7613 · NRL PL-161 · NRL PL-162 · NRL PL-163 · NRL PL-164 · NRL PL-176 · Timation 2 · Tempsat 2 · SOICAL Cone · SOICAL Cylinder | ESRO-1B | Meteor-1 No.15 | Soyuz 6 | Soyuz 7 | Soyuz 8 | Interkosmos 1 | Kosmos 302 | Kosmos 303 | Kosmos 304 | Kosmos 305 | Kosmos 306 | Kosmos 307 | OPS 8455 | Kosmos 308 | Azur | Kosmos 309 | Apollo 12 | Kosmos 310 | Skynet 1A | Kosmos 311 | Kosmos 312 | 7K-L1e No.1 | Kosmos 313 | OPS 6617 | Kosmos 314 | Kosmos 315 | Kosmos 316 | Kosmos 317 | Interkosmos 2 | Unnamed Payloads are separated by bullets ( · ), launches by pipes ( | ). Crewed flights are indicated in underline. Uncatalogued launch failures are listed in italics. Payloads deployed from other spacecraft are denoted in brackets.     vte NASA Policy and history     History         NACA (1915) National Aeronautics and Space Act (1958) Space Task Group (1958) Paine (1986) Rogers (1986) Ride (1987) Space Exploration Initiative (1989) Augustine (1990) U.S. National Space Policy (1996) CFUSAI (2002) CAIB (2003) Vision for Space Exploration (2004) Aldridge (2004) Augustine (2009) General         Space Race Administrator and Deputy Administrator Chief Scientist Astronaut Corps         Ranks and positions Chief Budget NASA research         spinoff technologies NASA TV NASA Social Launch Services Program Mercury Control Center Manned Space Flight Network Kennedy Space Center         Vehicle Assembly Building Launch Complex 39 Launch Complex 48 Launch Control Center Operations and Checkout Building Johnson Space Center         Mission Control Lunar Sample Laboratory Human spaceflight programs     Past         X-15 (suborbital) Mercury Gemini Apollo Skylab Apollo–Soyuz (with the Soviet space program) Space Shuttle Shuttle–Mir (with Roscosmos State Corporation) Constellation Current         International Space Station Commercial Orbital Transportation Services Commercial Crew Orion Artemis Lunar Gateway Robotic programs     Past         Hitchhiker Mariner Mariner Mark II MESUR Mars Surveyor '98 New Millennium Lunar Orbiter Pioneer Planetary Observer Ranger Surveyor Viking Project Prometheus Mars Exploration Mars Exploration Rover Current         Living With a Star Lunar Precursor Robotic Program Earth Observing System Great Observatories program Explorers Voyager Discovery New Frontiers Solar Terrestrial Probes Commercial Lunar Payload Services Individual featured missions (human and robotic)     Past         COBE Mercury 3 Mercury-Atlas 6 Magellan Pioneer 10 Pioneer 11 Galileo         timeline GALEX GRAIL WMAP Space Shuttle Spitzer Space Telescope Sojourner rover Spirit rover LADEE MESSENGER Aquarius Cassini Dawn Kepler space telescope Opportunity rover         timeline RHESSI         observed Currently operating         Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter 2001 Mars Odyssey New Horizons International Space Station Hubble Space Telescope Swift THEMIS Mars Exploration Rover Curiosity rover         timeline InSight GOES 14 Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter GOES 15 Van Allen Probes Solar Dynamics Observatory Juno Mars Science Laboratory         timeline NuSTAR Voyager 1 Voyager 2 WISE MAVEN MMS OSIRIS-REx Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite Mars 2020         Perseverance rover Ingenuity helicopter timeline James Webb Space Telescope         timeline Future         Joint Polar Satellite System NISAR Europa Clipper Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope Communications and navigation         Near Earth Network Space Network Deep Space Network (Goldstone Madrid Canberra Space Flight Operations Facility) Deep Space Atomic Clock NASA lists         Astronauts         by name by year Gemini astronauts Apollo astronauts Space Shuttle crews NASA aircraft NASA missions         uncrewed missions Apollo missions Space Shuttle missions NASA contractors United States rockets NASA cancellations NASA cameras on spacecraft NASA images and artwork         Earthrise The Blue Marble Family Portrait         Pale Blue Dot Pillars of Creation Mystic Mountain Solar System Family Portrait The Day the Earth Smiled Fallen Astronaut Lunar plaques Pioneer plaques Voyager Golden Record Apollo 11 goodwill messages NASA insignia Gemini and Apollo medallions Mission patches Related         "We choose to go to the Moon" Apollo 8 Genesis reading Apollo 15 postal covers incident Space Mirror Memorial The Astronaut Monument Lunar sample displays U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame Space program on U.S. stamps Apollo 17 Moon mice Moon tree Other primates in space NASA International Space Apps Challenge Astronauts Day     Category Commons Portals: Texas Solar System Space Spaceflight Astronomy Authority control Edit this at Wikidata General         VIAF         1 WorldCat National libraries         France (data) Germany Israel United States Other         Social Networks and Archival Context Categories:     LQ12 quadrangleApollo 11Buzz AldrinNeil ArmstrongMichael Collins (astronaut)Apollo program missions1969 on the MoonSoft landings on the MoonSpacecraft launched by Saturn rocketsCrewed missions to the Moon A Moon landing is the arrival of a spacecraft on the surface of the Moon. This includes both crewed and robotic missions. The first human-made object to touch the Moon was the Soviet Union's Luna 2, on 13 September 1959.[3] The United States' Apollo 11 was the first crewed mission to land on the Moon, on 20 July 1969.[4] There were six crewed U.S. landings between 1969 and 1972, and numerous uncrewed landings, with no soft landings happening between 22 August 1976 and 14 December 2013. The United States is the only country to have successfully conducted crewed missions to the Moon, with the last departing the lunar surface in December 1972. All soft landings took place on the near side of the Moon until 3 January 2019, when the Chinese Chang'e 4 spacecraft made the first landing on the far side of the Moon.[5] Uncrewed landings Stamp with a drawing of the first soft landed probe Luna 9, next to the first view of the lunar surface photographed by the probe. After the unsuccessful attempt by Luna 1 to land on the Moon in 1959, the Soviet Union performed the first hard Moon landing – "hard" meaning the spacecraft intentionally crashes into the Moon – later that same year with the Luna 2 spacecraft, a feat the U.S. duplicated in 1962 with Ranger 4. Since then, twelve Soviet and U.S. spacecraft have used braking rockets (retrorockets) to make soft landings and perform scientific operations on the lunar surface, between 1966 and 1976. In 1966, the USSR accomplished the first soft landings and took the first pictures from the lunar surface during the Luna 9 and Luna 13 missions. The U.S. followed with five uncrewed Surveyor soft landings. The Soviet Union achieved the first uncrewed lunar soil sample return with the Luna 16 probe on 24 September 1970. This was followed by Luna 20 and Luna 24 in 1972 and 1976, respectively. Following the failure at launch in 1969 of the first Lunokhod, Luna E-8 No.201, the Luna 17 and Luna 21 were successful uncrewed lunar rover missions in 1970 and 1973. Many missions were failures at launch. In addition, several uncrewed landing missions achieved the Lunar surface but were unsuccessful, including: Luna 15, Luna 18, and Luna 23 all crashed on landing; and the U.S. Surveyor 4 lost all radio contact only moments before its landing. More recently, other nations have crashed spacecraft on the surface of the Moon at speeds of around 8,000 kilometres per hour (5,000 mph), often at precise, planned locations. These have generally been end-of-life lunar orbiters that, because of system degradations, could no longer overcome perturbations from lunar mass concentrations ("masscons") to maintain their orbit. Japan's lunar orbiter Hiten impacted the Moon's surface on 10 April 1993. The European Space Agency performed a controlled crash impact with their orbiter SMART-1 on 3 September 2006. Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) performed a controlled crash impact with its Moon Impact Probe (MIP) on 14 November 2008. The MIP was an ejected probe from the Indian Chandrayaan-1 lunar orbiter and performed remote sensing experiments during its descent to the lunar surface. The Chinese lunar orbiter Chang'e 1 executed a controlled crash onto the surface of the Moon on 1 March 2009. The rover mission Chang'e 3 soft-landed on 14 December 2013, as did its successor, Chang'e 4, on 3 January 2019. All crewed and uncrewed soft landings had taken place on the near side of the Moon, until 3 January 2019 when the Chinese Chang'e 4 spacecraft made the first landing on the far side of the Moon.[5] On 22 February 2019, Israeli private space agency SpaceIL launched spacecraft Beresheet on board a Falcon 9 from Cape Canaveral, Florida with the intention of achieving a soft landing. SpaceIL lost contact with the spacecraft and it crashed into the surface on 11 April 2019.[6] Indian Space Research Organization launched Chandrayaan-2 on 22 July 2019 with landing scheduled on 6 September 2019. However, at an altitude of 2.1 km from the Moon a few minutes before soft landing, the lander lost contact with the control room.[7] Crewed landings Further information: Apollo program See also: List of people who have walked on the Moon The view through the window of the Lunar Module Orion shortly after Apollo 16's landing. A total of twelve men have landed on the Moon. This was accomplished with two US pilot-astronauts flying a Lunar Module on each of six NASA missions across a 41-month period starting 20 July 1969, with Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on Apollo 11, and ending on 14 December 1972 with Gene Cernan and Jack Schmitt on Apollo 17. Cernan was the last man to step off the lunar surface. All Apollo lunar missions had a third crew member who remained on board the command module. The last three missions included a drivable lunar rover, the Lunar Roving Vehicle, for increased mobility. Scientific background To get to the Moon, a spacecraft must first leave Earth's gravity well; currently, the only practical means is a rocket. Unlike airborne vehicles such as balloons and jets, a rocket can continue accelerating in the vacuum outside the atmosphere. Upon approach of the target moon, a spacecraft will be drawn ever closer to its surface at increasing speeds due to gravity. In order to land intact it must decelerate to less than about 160 kilometres per hour (99 mph) and be ruggedized to withstand a "hard landing" impact, or it must decelerate to negligible speed at contact for a "soft landing" (the only option for humans). The first three attempts by the U.S. to perform a successful hard Moon landing with a ruggedized seismometer package in 1962 all failed.[8] The Soviets first achieved the milestone of a hard lunar landing with a ruggedized camera in 1966, followed only months later by the first uncrewed soft lunar landing by the U.S. The speed of a crash landing on its surface is typically between 70 and 100% of the escape velocity of the target moon, and thus this is the total velocity which must be shed from the target moon's gravitational attraction for a soft landing to occur. For Earth's Moon, the escape velocity is 2.38 kilometres per second (1.48 mi/s).[9] The change in velocity (referred to as a delta-v) is usually provided by a landing rocket, which must be carried into space by the original launch vehicle as part of the overall spacecraft. An exception is the soft moon landing on Titan carried out by the Huygens probe in 2005. As the moon with the thickest atmosphere, landings on Titan may be accomplished by using atmospheric entry techniques that are generally lighter in weight than a rocket with equivalent capability. The Soviets succeeded in making the first crash landing on the Moon in 1959.[10] Crash landings[11] may occur because of malfunctions in a spacecraft, or they can be deliberately arranged for vehicles which do not have an onboard landing rocket. There have been many such Moon crashes, often with their flight path controlled to impact at precise locations on the lunar surface. For example, during the Apollo program the S-IVB third stage of the Saturn V rocket as well as the spent ascent stage of the Lunar Module were deliberately crashed on the Moon several times to provide impacts registering as a moonquake on seismometers that had been left on the lunar surface. Such crashes were instrumental in mapping the internal structure of the Moon. To return to Earth, the escape velocity of the Moon must be overcome for the spacecraft to escape the gravity well of the Moon. Rockets must be used to leave the Moon and return to space. Upon reaching Earth, atmospheric entry techniques are used to absorb the kinetic energy of a returning spacecraft and reduce its speed for safe landing. These functions greatly complicate a moon landing mission and lead to many additional operational considerations. Any moon departure rocket must first be carried to the Moon's surface by a moon landing rocket, increasing the latter's required size. The Moon departure rocket, larger moon landing rocket and any Earth atmosphere entry equipment such as heat shields and parachutes must in turn be lifted by the original launch vehicle, greatly increasing its size by a significant and almost prohibitive degree. Political background Main article: Space Race      This section has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page. (Learn how and when to remove these template messages) This section's tone or style may not reflect the encyclopedic tone used on Wikipedia. (January 2016) This section contains information of unclear or questionable importance or relevance to the article's subject matter. (January 2016) ‹ The template below (More citations needed section) is being considered for merging. See templates for discussion to help reach a consensus. › This section needs additional citations for verification. (January 2013) The intense efforts devoted in the 1960s to achieving first an uncrewed and then ultimately a human Moon landing become easier to understand in the political context of its historical era. World War II had introduced many new and deadly innovations including blitzkrieg-style surprise attacks used in the invasion of Poland and Finland, and in the attack on Pearl Harbor; the V-2 rocket, a ballistic missile which killed thousands in attacks on London and Antwerp; and the atom bomb, which killed hundreds of thousands in the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In the 1950s, tensions mounted between the two ideologically opposed superpowers of the United States and the Soviet Union that had emerged as victors in the conflict, particularly after the development by both countries of the hydrogen bomb. The first image of another world from space, returned by Luna 3, showed the far side of the Moon in October 1959. Willy Ley wrote in 1957 that a rocket to the Moon "could be built later this year if somebody can be found to sign some papers".[12] On 4 October 1957, the Soviet Union launched Sputnik 1 as the first artificial satellite to orbit the Earth and so initiated the Space Race. This unexpected event was a source of pride to the Soviets and shock to the U.S., who could now potentially be surprise attacked by nuclear-tipped Soviet rockets in under 30 minutes.[citation needed] Also, the steady beeping of the radio beacon aboard Sputnik 1 as it passed overhead every 96 minutes was widely viewed on both sides[citation needed] as effective propaganda to Third World countries demonstrating the technological superiority of the Soviet political system compared to that of the U.S. This perception was reinforced by a string of subsequent rapid-fire Soviet space achievements. In 1959, the R-7 rocket was used to launch the first escape from Earth's gravity into a solar orbit, the first crash impact onto the surface of the Moon, and the first photography of the never-before-seen far side of the Moon. These were the Luna 1, Luna 2, and Luna 3 spacecraft. A 1963 conceptual model of the Apollo Lunar Excursion Module The U.S. response to these Soviet achievements was to greatly accelerate previously existing military space and missile projects and to create a civilian space agency, NASA. Military efforts were initiated to develop and produce mass quantities of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) that would bridge the so-called missile gap and enable a policy of deterrence to nuclear war with the Soviets known as mutual assured destruction or MAD. These newly developed missiles were made available to civilians of NASA for various projects (which would have the added benefit of demonstrating the payload, guidance accuracy and reliabilities of U.S. ICBMs to the Soviets). While NASA stressed peaceful and scientific uses for these rockets, their use in various lunar exploration efforts also had secondary goal of realistic, goal-oriented testing of the missiles themselves and development of associated infrastructure,[citation needed] just as the Soviets were doing with their R-7. Early Soviet uncrewed lunar missions (1958–1965) After the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, historical records were released to allow the true accounting of Soviet lunar efforts. Unlike the U.S. tradition of assigning a particular mission name in advance of a launch, the Soviets assigned a public "Luna" mission number only if a launch resulted in a spacecraft going beyond Earth orbit. The policy had the effect of hiding Soviet Moon mission failures from public view. If the attempt failed in Earth orbit before departing for the Moon, it was frequently (but not always) given a "Sputnik" or "Cosmos" Earth-orbit mission number to hide its purpose. Launch explosions were not acknowledged at all. Mission     Mass (kg)     Launch vehicle     Launch date     Goal     Result         Semyorka – 8K72     23 September 1958     Impact     Failure – booster malfunction at T+ 93 s         Semyorka – 8K72     12 October 1958     Impact     Failure – booster malfunction at T+ 104 s         Semyorka – 8K72     4 December 1958     Impact     Failure – booster malfunction at T+ 254 s Luna-1     361     Semyorka – 8K72     2 January 1959     Impact     Partial success – first spacecraft to reach escape velocity, lunar flyby, solar orbit; missed the Moon         Semyorka – 8K72     18 June 1959     Impact     Failure – booster malfunction at T+ 153 s Luna-2     390     Semyorka – 8K72     12 September 1959     Impact     Success – first lunar impact Luna-3     270     Semyorka – 8K72     4 October 1959     Flyby     Success – first photos of lunar far side         Semyorka – 8K72     15 April 1960     Flyby     Failure – booster malfunction, failed to reach Earth orbit         Semyorka – 8K72     16 April 1960     Flyby     Failure – booster malfunction at T+ 1 s Sputnik-25         Semyorka – 8K78     4 January 1963     Landing     Failure – stranded in low Earth orbit         Semyorka – 8K78     3 February 1963     Landing     Failure – booster malfunction at T+ 105 s Luna-4     1422     Semyorka – 8K78     2 April 1963     Landing     Failure – lunar flyby at 8,000 kilometres (5,000 mi)         Semyorka – 8K78     21 March 1964     Landing     Failure – booster malfunction, failed to reach Earth orbit         Semyorka – 8K78     20 April 1964     Landing     Failure – booster malfunction, failed to reach Earth orbit Cosmos-60         Semyorka – 8K78     12 March 1965     Landing     Failure – stranded in low Earth orbit         Semyorka – 8K78     10 April 1965     Landing     Failure – booster malfunction, failed to reach Earth orbit Luna-5     1475     Semyorka – 8K78     9 May 1965     Landing     Failure – lunar impact Luna-6     1440     Semyorka – 8K78     8 June 1965     Landing     Failure – lunar flyby at 160,000 kilometres (99,000 mi) Luna-7     1504     Semyorka – 8K78     4 October 1965     Landing     Failure – lunar impact Luna-8     1550     Semyorka – 8K78     3 December 1965     Landing     Failure – lunar impact during landing attempt Early U.S. uncrewed lunar missions (1958–1965)      This section is written like a personal reflection, personal essay, or argumentative essay that states a Wikipedia editor's personal feelings or presents an original argument about a topic. Please help improve it by rewriting it in an encyclopedic style. (September 2019) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) Artist's portrayal of a Ranger spacecraft right before impact One of the last photos of the Moon transmitted by Ranger 8 right before impact In contrast to Soviet lunar exploration triumphs in 1959, success eluded initial U.S. efforts to reach the Moon with the Pioneer and Ranger programs. Fifteen consecutive U.S. uncrewed lunar missions over a six-year period from 1958 to 1964 all failed their primary photographic missions;[13][14] however, Rangers 4 and 6 successfully repeated the Soviet lunar impacts as part of their secondary missions.[15][16] Failures included three U.S. attempts[8][15][17] in 1962 to hard land small seismometer packages released by the main Ranger spacecraft. These surface packages were to use retrorockets to survive landing, unlike the parent vehicle, which was designed to deliberately crash onto the surface. The final three Ranger probes performed successful high altitude lunar reconnaissance photography missions during intentional crash impacts between 2.62 and 2.68 kilometres per second (9,400 and 9,600 km/h).[18][19][20] Mission     Mass (kg)     Launch vehicle     Launch date     Goal     Result Pioneer 0     38     Thor-Able     17 August 1958     Lunar orbit     Failure – first stage explosion; destroyed Pioneer 1     34     Thor-Able     11 October 1958     Lunar orbit     Failure – software error; reentry Pioneer 2     39     Thor-Able     8 November 1958     Lunar orbit     Failure – third stage misfire; reentry Pioneer 3     6     Juno     6 December 1958     Flyby     Failure – first stage misfire, reentry Pioneer 4     6     Juno     3 March 1959     Flyby     Partial success – first US craft to reach escape velocity, lunar flyby too far to shoot photos due to targeting error; solar orbit Pioneer P-1     168     Atlas-Able     24 September 1959     Lunar orbit     Failure – pad explosion; destroyed Pioneer P-3     168     Atlas-Able     29 November 1959     Lunar orbit     Failure – payload shroud; destroyed Pioneer P-30     175     Atlas-Able     25 September 1960     Lunar orbit     Failure – second stage anomaly; reentry Pioneer P-31     175     Atlas-Able     15 December 1960     Lunar orbit     Failure – first stage explosion; destroyed Ranger 1     306     Atlas – Agena     23 August 1961     Prototype test     Failure – upper stage anomaly; reentry Ranger 2     304     Atlas – Agena     18 November 1961     Prototype test     Failure – upper stage anomaly; reentry Ranger 3     330     Atlas – Agena     26 January 1962     Landing     Failure – booster guidance; solar orbit Ranger 4     331     Atlas – Agena     23 April 1962     Landing     Partial success – first U.S. spacecraft to reach another celestial body; crash impact – no photos returned Ranger 5     342     Atlas – Agena     18 October 1962     Landing     Failure – spacecraft power; solar orbit Ranger 6     367     Atlas – Agena     30 January 1964     Impact     Failure – spacecraft camera; crash impact Ranger 7     367     Atlas – Agena     28 July 1964     Impact     Success – returned 4308 photos, crash impact Ranger 8     367     Atlas – Agena     17 February 1965     Impact     Success – returned 7137 photos, crash impact Ranger 9     367     Atlas – Agena     21 March 1965     Impact     Success – returned 5814 photos, crash impact Pioneer missions Three different designs of Pioneer lunar probes were flown on three different modified ICBMs. Those flown on the Thor booster modified with an Able upper stage carried an infrared image scanning television system with a resolution of 1 milliradian to study the Moon's surface, an ionization chamber to measure radiation in space, a diaphragm/microphone assembly to detect micrometeorites, a magnetometer, and temperature-variable resistors to monitor spacecraft internal thermal conditions. The first, a mission managed by the United States Air Force, exploded during launch; all subsequent Pioneer lunar flights had NASA as the lead management organization. The next two returned to Earth and burned up upon reentry into the atmosphere after achieved maximum altitudes of around 110,000 kilometres (68,000 mi) and 1,450 kilometres (900 mi), far short of the roughly 400,000 kilometres (250,000 mi) required to reach the vicinity of the Moon. NASA then collaborated with the United States Army's Ballistic Missile Agency to fly two extremely small cone-shaped probes on the Juno ICBM, carrying only photocells which would be triggered by the light of the Moon and a lunar radiation environment experiment using a Geiger-Müller tube detector. The first of these reached an altitude of only around 100,000 kilometres (62,000 mi), serendipitously gathering data that established the presence of the Van Allen radiation belts before reentering Earth's atmosphere. The second passed by the Moon at a distance of more than 60,000 kilometres (37,000 mi), twice as far as planned and too far away to trigger either of the on-board scientific instruments, yet still becoming the first U.S. spacecraft to reach a solar orbit. The final Pioneer lunar probe design consisted of four "paddlewheel" solar panels extending from a one-meter diameter spherical spin-stabilized spacecraft body equipped to take images of the lunar surface with a television-like system, estimate the Moon's mass and topography of the poles, record the distribution and velocity of micrometeorites, study radiation, measure magnetic fields, detect low frequency electromagnetic waves in space and use a sophisticated integrated propulsion system for maneuvering and orbit insertion as well. None of the four spacecraft built in this series of probes survived launch on its Atlas ICBM outfitted with an Able upper stage. Following the unsuccessful Atlas-Able Pioneer probes, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory embarked upon an uncrewed spacecraft development program whose modular design could be used to support both lunar and interplanetary exploration missions. The interplanetary versions were known as Mariners; lunar versions were Rangers. JPL envisioned three versions of the Ranger lunar probes: Block I prototypes, which would carry various radiation detectors in test flights to a very high Earth orbit that came nowhere near the Moon; Block II, which would try to accomplish the first Moon landing by hard landing a seismometer package; and Block III, which would crash onto the lunar surface without any braking rockets while taking very high resolution wide-area photographs of the Moon during their descent. Ranger missions See also: Ranger program The Ranger 1 and 2 Block I missions were virtually identical.[21][22] Spacecraft experiments included a Lyman-alpha telescope, a rubidium-vapor magnetometer, electrostatic analyzers, medium-energy-range particle detectors, two triple coincidence telescopes, a cosmic-ray integrating ionization chamber, cosmic dust detectors, and scintillation counters. The goal was to place these Block I spacecraft in a very high Earth orbit with an apogee of 110,000 kilometres (68,000 mi) and a perigee of 60,000 kilometres (37,000 mi).[21] From that vantage point, scientists could make direct measurements of the magnetosphere over a period of many months while engineers perfected new methods to routinely track and communicate with spacecraft over such large distances. Such practice was deemed vital to be assured of capturing high-bandwidth television transmissions from the Moon during a one-shot fifteen-minute time window in subsequent Block II and Block III lunar descents. Both Block I missions suffered failures of the new Agena upper stage and never left low Earth parking orbit after launch; both burned up upon reentry after only a few days. The first attempts to perform a Moon landing took place in 1962 during the Rangers 3, 4 and 5 missions flown by the United States.[8][15][17] All three Block II missions basic vehicles were 3.1 m high and consisted of a lunar capsule covered with a balsa wood impact-limiter, 650 mm in diameter, a mono-propellant mid-course motor, a retrorocket with a thrust of 5,050 pounds-force (22.5 kN),[15] and a gold- and chrome-plated hexagonal base 1.5 m in diameter. This lander (code-named Tonto) was designed to provide impact cushioning using an exterior blanket of crushable balsa wood and an interior filled with incompressible liquid freon. A 42 kg (56 pounds) 30-centimetre-diameter (0.98 ft) metal payload sphere floated and was free to rotate in a liquid freon reservoir contained in the landing sphere.[citation needed]     "Everything that we do ought to really be tied-in to getting onto the Moon ahead of the Russians. ...We're ready to spend reasonable amounts of money, but we're talking about fantastic expenditures which wreck our budget and all these other domestic programs, and the only justification for it, in my opinion, to do it is because we hope to beat them and demonstrate that starting behind, as we did by a couple of years, by God, we passed them." — John F. Kennedy on the planned Moon landing, 21 November 1962[23] This payload sphere contained six silver-cadmium batteries to power a fifty-milliwatt radio transmitter, a temperature sensitive voltage controlled oscillator to measure lunar surface temperatures, and a seismometer designed with sensitivity high enough to detect the impact of a 5 lb (2.3 kg) meteorite on the opposite side of the Moon. Weight was distributed in the payload sphere so it would rotate in its liquid blanket to place the seismometer into an upright and operational position no matter what the final resting orientation of the external landing sphere. After landing, plugs were to be opened allowing the freon to evaporate and the payload sphere to settle into upright contact with the landing sphere. The batteries were sized to allow up to three months of operation for the payload sphere. Various mission constraints limited the landing site to Oceanus Procellarum on the lunar equator, which the lander ideally would reach 66 hours after launch. No cameras were carried by the Ranger landers, and no pictures were to be captured from the lunar surface during the mission. Instead, the 3.1 metres (10 ft) Ranger Block II mother ship carried a 200-scan-line television camera which was to capture images during the free-fall descent to the lunar surface. The camera was designed to transmit a picture every 10 seconds.[15] Seconds before impact, at 5 and 0.6 kilometres (3.11 and 0.37 mi) above the lunar surface, the Ranger mother ships took pictures (which may be viewed here). Other instruments gathering data before the mother ship crashed onto the Moon were a gamma ray spectrometer to measure overall lunar chemical composition and a radar altimeter. The radar altimeter was to give a signal ejecting the landing capsule and its solid-fueled braking rocket overboard from the Block II mother ship. The braking rocket was to slow and the landing sphere to a dead stop at 330 metres (1,080 ft) above the surface and separate, allowing the landing sphere to free fall once more and hit the surface.[citation needed] On Ranger 3, failure of the Atlas guidance system and a software error aboard the Agena upper stage combined to put the spacecraft on a course that would miss the Moon. Attempts to salvage lunar photography during a flyby of the Moon were thwarted by in-flight failure of the onboard flight computer. This was probably because of prior heat sterilization of the spacecraft by keeping it above the boiling point of water for 24 hours on the ground, to protect the Moon from being contaminated by Earth organisms. Heat sterilization was also blamed for subsequent in-flight failures of the spacecraft computer on Ranger 4 and the power subsystem on Ranger 5. Only Ranger 4 reached the Moon in an uncontrolled crash impact on the far side of the Moon.[citation needed] Heat sterilization was discontinued for the final four Block III Ranger probes.[citation needed] These replaced the Block II landing capsule and its retrorocket with a heavier, more capable television system to support landing site selection for upcoming Apollo crewed Moon landing missions. Six cameras were designed to take thousands of high-altitude photographs in the final twenty-minute period before crashing on the lunar surface. Camera resolution was 1,132 scan lines, far higher than the 525 lines found in a typical U.S. 1964 home television. While Ranger 6 suffered a failure of this camera system and returned no photographs despite an otherwise successful flight, the subsequent Ranger 7 mission to Mare Cognitum was a complete success. Breaking the six-year string of failures in U.S. attempts to photograph the Moon at close range, the Ranger 7 mission was viewed as a national turning point and instrumental in allowing the key 1965 NASA budget appropriation to pass through the United States Congress intact without a reduction in funds for the Apollo crewed Moon landing program. Subsequent successes with Ranger 8 and Ranger 9 further buoyed U.S. hopes. Soviet uncrewed soft landings (1966–1976) Model of Luna 16 Moon soil sample return lander Model of Soviet Lunokhod automatic Moon rover The Luna 9 spacecraft, launched by the Soviet Union, performed the first successful soft Moon landing on 3 February 1966. Airbags protected its 99 kilograms (218 lb) ejectable capsule which survived an impact speed of over 15 metres per second (54 km/h; 34 mph).[24] Luna 13 duplicated this feat with a similar Moon landing on 24 December 1966. Both returned panoramic photographs that were the first views from the lunar surface.[25] Luna 16 was the first robotic probe to land on the Moon and safely return a sample of lunar soil back to Earth.[26] It represented the first lunar sample return mission by the Soviet Union, and was the third lunar sample return mission overall, following the Apollo 11 and Apollo 12 missions. This mission was later successfully repeated by Luna 20 (1972) and Luna 24 (1976). In 1970 and 1973 two Lunokhod ("Moonwalker") robotic lunar rovers were delivered to the Moon, where they successfully operated for 10 and 4 months respectively, covering 10.5 km (Lunokhod 1) and 37 km (Lunokhod 2). These rover missions were in operation concurrently with the Zond and Luna series of Moon flyby, orbiter and landing missions. Mission     Mass (kg)     Booster     Launch date     Goal     Result     Landing zone     Lat/Lon Luna-9     1580     Semyorka – 8K78     31 January 1966     Landing     Success – first lunar soft landing, numerous photos     Oceanus Procellarum     7.13°N 64.37°W Luna-13     1580     Semyorka – 8K78     21 December 1966     Landing     Success – second lunar soft landing, numerous photos     Oceanus Procellarum     18°52'N 62°3'W         Proton     19 February 1969     Lunar rover     Failure – booster malfunction, failed to reach Earth orbit                  Proton     14 June 1969     Sample return     Failure – booster malfunction, failed to reach Earth orbit          Luna-15     5,700     Proton     13 July 1969     Sample return     Failure – lunar crash impact     Mare Crisium     unknown Cosmos-300         Proton     23 September 1969     Sample return     Failure – stranded in low Earth orbit          Cosmos-305         Proton     22 October 1969     Sample return     Failure – stranded in low Earth orbit                  Proton     6 February 1970     Sample return     Failure – booster malfunction, failed to reach Earth orbit          Luna-16     5,600     Proton     12 September 1970     Sample return     Success – returned 0.10 kg of Moon soil back to Earth     Mare Fecunditatis     000.68S 056.30E Luna-17     5,700     Proton     10 November 1970     Lunar rover     Success – Lunokhod-1 rover traveled 10.5 km across lunar surface     Mare Imbrium     038.28N 325.00E Luna-18     5,750     Proton     2 September 1971     Sample return     Failure – lunar crash impact     Mare Fecunditatis     003.57N 056.50E Luna-20     5,727     Proton     14 February 1972     Sample return     Success – returned 0.05 kg of Moon soil back to Earth     Mare Fecunditatis     003.57N 056.50E Luna-21     5,950     Proton     8 January 1973     Lunar rover     Success – Lunokhod-2 rover traveled 37.0 km across lunar surface     LeMonnier Crater     025.85N 030.45E Luna-23     5,800     Proton     28 October 1974     Sample return     Failure – Moon landing achieved, but malfunction prevented sample return     Mare Crisium     012.00N 062.00E         Proton     16 October 1975     Sample return     Failure – booster malfunction, failed to reach Earth orbit          Luna-24     5,800     Proton     9 August 1976     Sample return     Success – returned 0.17 kg of Moon soil back to Earth     Mare Crisium     012.25N 062.20E U.S. uncrewed soft landings (1966–1968) Launch of Surveyor 1. Pete Conrad, commander of Apollo 12, stands next to Surveyor 3 lander. In the background is the Apollo 12 lander, Intrepid. The U.S. robotic Surveyor program was part of an effort to locate a safe site on the Moon for a human landing and test under lunar conditions the radar and landing systems required to make a true controlled touchdown. Five of Surveyor's seven missions made successful uncrewed Moon landings. Surveyor 3 was visited two years after its Moon landing by the crew of Apollo 12. They removed parts of it for examination back on Earth to determine the effects of long-term exposure to the lunar environment. Mission     Mass (kg)     Booster     Launch date     Goal     Result     Landing zone     Lat/Lon Surveyor 1     292     Atlas – Centaur     30 May 1966     Landing     Success – 11,000 pictures returned, first U.S. Moon landing     Oceanus Procellarum     002.45S 043.22W Surveyor 2     292     Atlas – Centaur     20 September 1966     Landing     Failure – midcourse engine malfunction, placing vehicle in unrecoverable tumble; crashed southeast of Copernicus Crater     Sinus Medii     004.00S 011.00W Surveyor 3     302     Atlas – Centaur     20 April 1967     Landing     Success – 6,000 pictures returned; trench dug to 17.5 cm depth after 18 hr of robot arm use     Oceanus Procellarum     002.94S 336.66E Surveyor 4     282     Atlas – Centaur     14 July 1967     Landing     Failure – radio contact lost 2.5 minutes before touchdown; perfect automated Moon landing possible but outcome unknown     Sinus Medii     unknown Surveyor 5     303     Atlas – Centaur     8 September 1967     Landing     Success – 19,000 photos returned, first use of alpha scatter soil composition monitor     Mare Tranquillitatis     001.41N 023.18E Surveyor 6     300     Atlas – Centaur     7 November 1967     Landing     Success – 30,000 photos returned, robot arm and alpha scatter science, engine restart, second landing 2.5 m away from first     Sinus Medii     000.46N 358.63E Surveyor 7     306     Atlas – Centaur     7 January 1968     Landing     Success – 21,000 photos returned; robot arm and alpha scatter science; laser beams from Earth detected     Tycho Crater     041.01S 348.59E Transition from direct ascent landings to lunar orbit operations Within four months of each other in early 1966 the Soviet Union and the United States had accomplished successful Moon landings with uncrewed spacecraft. To the general public both countries had demonstrated roughly equal technical capabilities by returning photographic images from the surface of the Moon. These pictures provided a key affirmative answer to the crucial question of whether or not lunar soil would support upcoming crewed landers with their much greater weight. However, the Luna 9 hard landing of a ruggedized sphere using airbags at a 50-kilometre-per-hour (31 mph) ballistic impact speed had much more in common with the failed 1962 Ranger landing attempts and their planned 160-kilometre-per-hour (99 mph) impacts than with the Surveyor 1 soft landing on three footpads using its radar-controlled, adjustable-thrust retrorocket. While Luna 9 and Surveyor 1 were both major national accomplishments, only Surveyor 1 had reached its landing site employing key technologies that would be needed for a crewed flight. Thus as of mid-1966, the United States had begun to pull ahead of the Soviet Union in the so-called Space Race to land a man on the Moon. A timeline of the space race between 1957 and 1975, with missions from the US and USSR. Advances in other areas were necessary before crewed spacecraft could follow uncrewed ones to the surface of the Moon. Of particular importance was developing the expertise to perform flight operations in lunar orbit. Ranger, Surveyor and initial Luna Moon landing attempts all flew directly to the surface without a lunar orbit. Such direct ascents use a minimum amount of fuel for uncrewed spacecraft on a one-way trip. In contrast, crewed vehicles need additional fuel after a lunar landing to enable a return trip back to Earth for the crew. Leaving this massive amount of required Earth-return fuel in lunar orbit until it is used later in the mission is far more efficient than taking such fuel down to the lunar surface in a Moon landing and then hauling it all back into space yet again, working against lunar gravity both ways. Such considerations lead logically to a lunar orbit rendezvous mission profile for a crewed Moon landing. Accordingly, beginning in mid-1966 both the U.S. and U.S.S.R. naturally progressed into missions featuring lunar orbit as a prerequisite to a crewed Moon landing. The primary goals of these initial uncrewed orbiters were extensive photographic mapping of the entire lunar surface for the selection of crewed landing sites and, for the Soviets, the checkout of radio communications gear that would be used in future soft landings. An unexpected major discovery from initial lunar orbiters were vast volumes of dense materials beneath the surface of the Moon's maria. Such mass concentrations ("mascons") can send a crewed mission dangerously off course in the final minutes of a Moon landing when aiming for a relatively small landing zone that is smooth and safe. Mascons were also found over a longer period of time to greatly disturb the orbits of low-altitude satellites around the Moon, making their orbits unstable and forcing an inevitable crash on the lunar surface in the relatively short period of months to a few years. Controlling the location of impact for spent lunar orbiters can have scientific value. For example, in 1999 the NASA Lunar Prospector orbiter was deliberately targeted to impact a permanently shadowed area of Shoemaker Crater near the lunar south pole. It was hoped that energy from the impact would vaporize suspected shadowed ice deposits in the crater and liberate a water vapor plume detectable from Earth. No such plume was observed. However, a small vial of ashes from the body of pioneer lunar scientist Eugene Shoemaker was delivered by the Lunar Prospector to the crater named in his honor – currently[when?] the only human remains on the Moon. Soviet lunar orbit satellites (1966–1974) U.S.S.R. mission     Mass (kg)     Booster     Launched     Mission goal     Mission result Cosmos – 111         Molniya-M     1 March 1966     Lunar orbiter     Failure – stranded in low Earth orbit Luna-10     1,582     Molniya-M     31 March 1966     Lunar orbiter     Success – 2,738 km x 2,088 km x 72 deg orbit, 178 m period, 60-day science mission Luna-11     1,640     Molniya-M     24 August 1966     Lunar orbiter     Success – 2,931 km x 1,898 km x 27 deg orbit, 178 m period, 38-day science mission Luna-12     1,620     Molniya-M     22 October 1966     Lunar orbiter     Success – 2,938 km x 1,871 km x 10 deg orbit, 205 m period, 89-day science mission Cosmos-159     1,700     Molniya-M     17 May 1967     Prototype test     Success – high Earth orbit crewed landing communications gear radio calibration test         Molniya-M     7 February 1968     Lunar orbiter     Failure – booster malfunction, failed to reach Earth orbit – attempted radio calibration test? Luna-14     1,700     Molniya-M     7 April 1968     Lunar orbiter     Success – 870 km x 160 km x 42 deg orbit, 160 m period, unstable orbit, radio calibration test? Luna-19     5,700     Proton     28 September 1971     Lunar orbiter     Success – 140 km x 140 km x 41 deg orbit, 121 m period, 388-day science mission Luna-22     5,700     Proton     29 May 1974     Lunar orbiter     Success – 222 km x 219 km x 19 deg orbit, 130 m period, 521-day science mission Luna 10 became the first spacecraft to orbit the Moon on 3 April 1966. U.S. lunar orbit satellites (1966–1967) U.S. mission     Mass (kg)     Booster     Launched     Mission goal     Mission result Lunar Orbiter 1     386     Atlas – Agena     10 August 1966     Lunar orbiter     Success – 1,160 km X 189 km x 12 deg orbit, 208 m period, 80-day photography mission Lunar Orbiter 2     386     Atlas – Agena     6 November 1966     Lunar orbiter     Success – 1,860 km X 52 km x 12 deg orbit, 208 m period, 339-day photography mission Lunar Orbiter 3     386     Atlas – Agena     5 February 1967     Lunar orbiter     Success – 1,860 km X 52 km x 21 deg orbit, 208 m period, 246-day photography mission Lunar Orbiter 4     386     Atlas – Agena     4 May 1967     Lunar orbiter     Success – 6,111 km X 2,706 km x 86 deg orbit, 721 m period, 180-day photography mission Lunar Orbiter 5     386     Atlas – Agena     1 August 1967     Lunar orbiter     Success – 6,023 km X 195 km x 85 deg orbit, 510 m period, 183-day photography mission Soviet circumlunar loop flights (1967–1970) Main article: Soviet crewed lunar programs It is possible to aim a spacecraft from Earth so it will loop around the Moon and return to Earth without entering lunar orbit, following the so-called free return trajectory. Such circumlunar loop missions are simpler than lunar orbit missions because rockets for lunar orbit braking and Earth return are not required. However, a crewed circumlunar loop trip poses significant challenges beyond those found in a crewed low-Earth-orbit mission, offering valuable lessons in preparation for a crewed Moon landing. Foremost among these are mastering the demands of re-entering the Earth's atmosphere upon returning from the Moon. Inhabited Earth-orbiting vehicles such as the Space Shuttle return to Earth from speeds of around 7,500 m/s (27,000 km/h). Due to the effects of gravity, a vehicle returning from the Moon hits Earth's atmosphere at a much higher speed of around 11,000 m/s (40,000 km/h). The g-loading on astronauts during the resulting deceleration can be at the limits of human endurance even during a nominal reentry. Slight variations in the vehicle flight path and reentry angle during a return from the Moon can easily result in fatal levels of deceleration force. Achieving a crewed circumlunar loop flight prior to a crewed lunar landing became a primary goal of the Soviets with their Zond spacecraft program. The first three Zonds were robotic planetary probes; after that, the Zond name was transferred to a completely separate human spaceflight program. The initial focus of these later Zonds was extensive testing of required high-speed reentry techniques. This focus was not shared by the U.S., who chose instead to bypass the stepping stone of a crewed circumlunar loop mission and never developed a separate spacecraft for this purpose. Initial crewed spaceflights in the early 1960s placed a single person in low Earth orbit during the Soviet Vostok and U.S. Mercury programs. A two-flight extension of the Vostok program known as Voskhod effectively used Vostok capsules with their ejection seats removed to achieve Soviet space firsts of multiple person crews in 1964 and spacewalks in early 1965. These capabilities were later demonstrated by the U.S. in ten Gemini low Earth orbit missions throughout 1965 and 1966, using a totally new second-generation spacecraft design that had little in common with the earlier Mercury. These Gemini missions went on to prove techniques for orbital rendezvous and docking crucial to a crewed lunar landing mission profile. After the end of the Gemini program, the Soviet Union began flying their second-generation Zond crewed spacecraft in 1967 with the ultimate goal of looping a cosmonaut around the Moon and returning him or her immediately to Earth. The Zond spacecraft was launched with the simpler and already operational Proton launch rocket, unlike the parallel Soviet human Moon landing effort also underway at the time based on third-generation Soyuz spacecraft requiring development of the advanced N-1 booster. The Soviets thus believed they could achieve a crewed Zond circumlunar flight years before a U.S. human lunar landing and so score a propaganda victory. However, significant development problems delayed the Zond program and the success of the U.S. Apollo lunar landing program led to the eventual termination of the Zond effort. Like Zond, Apollo flights were generally launched on a free return trajectory that would return them to Earth via a circumlunar loop if a service module malfunction failed to place them in lunar orbit. This option was implemented after an explosion aboard the Apollo 13 mission in 1970, which is the only crewed circumlunar loop mission flown to date.[when?] U.S.S.R mission     Mass (kg)     Booster     Launched     Mission goal     Payload     Mission result Cosmos-146     5,400     Proton     10 March 1967     High Earth Orbit     uncrewed     Partial success – Successfully reached high Earth orbit, but became stranded and was unable to initiate controlled high speed atmospheric reentry test Cosmos-154     5,400     Proton     8 April 1967     High Earth Orbit     uncrewed     Partial success – Successfully reached high Earth orbit, but became stranded and was unable to initiate controlled high speed atmospheric reentry test         Proton     28 September 1967     High Earth Orbit     uncrewed     Failure – booster malfunction, failed to reach Earth orbit         Proton     22 November 1967     High Earth Orbit     uncrewed     Failure – booster malfunction, failed to reach Earth orbit Zond-4     5,140     Proton     2 March 1968     High Earth Orbit     uncrewed     Partial success – launched successfully to 300,000 km high Earth orbit, high speed reentry test guidance malfunction, intentional self-destruct to prevent landfall outside Soviet Union         Proton     23 April 1968     Circumlunar Loop     non-human biological payload     Failure – booster malfunction, failed to reach Earth orbit; launch preparation tank explosion kills three in pad crew Zond-5     5,375     Proton     15 September 1968     Circumlunar Loop     non-human biological payload     Success – looped around Moon with Earth's first near-lunar life forms, two tortoises and other live biological specimens, and the capsule and payload safely to Earth despite landing off-target outside the Soviet Union in the Indian Ocean Zond-6     5,375     Proton     10 November 1968     Circumlunar Loop     non-human biological payload     Partial success – looped around Moon, successful reentry, but loss of cabin air pressure caused biological payload death, parachute system malfunction and severe vehicle damage upon landing         Proton     20 January 1969     Circumlunar Loop     non-human biological payload     Failure – booster malfunction, failed to reach Earth orbit Zond-7     5,979     Proton     8 August 1969     Circumlunar Loop     non-human biological payload     Success – looped around Moon, returned biological payload safely to Earth and landed on-target inside Soviet Union. Only Zond mission whose reentry G-forces would have been survivable by human crew had they been aboard. Zond-8     5,375     Proton     20 October 1970     Circumlunar Loop     non-human biological payload     Success – looped around Moon, returned biological payload safely to Earth despite landing off-target outside Soviet Union in the Indian Ocean Zond 5 was the first spacecraft to carry life from Earth to the vicinity of the Moon and return, initiating the final lap of the Space Race with its payload of tortoises, insects, plants, and bacteria. Despite the failure suffered in its final moments, the Zond 6 mission was reported by Soviet media as being a success as well. Although hailed worldwide as remarkable achievements, both these Zond missions flew off-nominal reentry trajectories resulting in deceleration forces that would have been fatal to humans. As a result, the Soviets secretly planned to continue uncrewed Zond tests until their reliability to support human flight had been demonstrated. However, due to NASA's continuing problems with the lunar module, and because of CIA reports of a potential Soviet crewed circumlunar flight in late 1968, NASA fatefully changed the flight plan of Apollo 8 from an Earth-orbit lunar module test to a lunar orbit mission scheduled for late December 1968. In early December 1968 the launch window to the Moon opened for the Soviet launch site in Baikonur, giving the USSR their final chance to beat the US to the Moon. Cosmonauts went on alert and asked to fly the Zond spacecraft then in final countdown at Baikonur on the first human trip to the Moon. Ultimately, however, the Soviet Politburo decided the risk of crew death was unacceptable given the combined poor performance to that point of Zond/Proton and so scrubbed the launch of a crewed Soviet lunar mission. Their decision proved to be a wise one, since this unnumbered Zond mission was destroyed in another uncrewed test when it was finally launched several weeks later. By this time flights of the third generation U.S. Apollo spacecraft had begun. Far more capable than the Zond, the Apollo spacecraft had the necessary rocket power to slip into and out of lunar orbit and to make course adjustments required for a safe reentry during the return to Earth. The Apollo 8 mission carried out the first human trip to the Moon on 24 December 1968, certifying the Saturn V booster for crewed use and flying not a circumlunar loop but instead a full ten orbits around the Moon before returning safely to Earth. Apollo 10 then performed a full dress rehearsal of a crewed Moon landing in May 1969. This mission orbited within 47,400 feet (14.4 km) of the lunar surface, performing necessary low-altitude mapping of trajectory-altering mascons using a factory prototype lunar module too heavy to land. With the failure of the robotic Soviet sample return Moon landing attempt Luna 15 in July 1969, the stage was set for Apollo 11. Human Moon landings (1969–1972) The U.S. Saturn V and the Soviet N1. US strategy Main article: Apollo program § Political pressure builds Plans for human Moon exploration began during the Eisenhower administration. In a series of mid-1950s articles in Collier's magazine, Wernher von Braun had popularized the idea of a crewed expedition to establish a lunar base. A human Moon landing posed several daunting technical challenges to the US and USSR. Besides guidance and weight management, atmospheric re-entry without ablative overheating was a major hurdle. After the Soviets launched Sputnik, von Braun promoted a plan for the US Army to establish a military lunar outpost by 1965. After the early Soviet successes, especially Yuri Gagarin's flight, US President John F. Kennedy looked for a project that would capture the public imagination. He asked Vice President Lyndon Johnson to make recommendations on a scientific endeavor that would prove US world leadership. The proposals included non-space options such as massive irrigation projects to benefit the Third World. The Soviets, at the time, had more powerful rockets than the US, which gave them an advantage in some kinds of space mission. Advances in US nuclear weapon technology had led to smaller, lighter warheads; the Soviets' were much heavier, and the powerful R-7 rocket was developed to carry them. More modest missions such as flying around the Moon, or a space lab in lunar orbit (both were proposed by Kennedy to von Braun), offered too much advantage to the Soviets; landing, however, would capture the world's imagination. Apollo landing sites Johnson had championed the US human spaceflight program ever since Sputnik, sponsoring legislation to create NASA while he was still a senator. When Kennedy asked him in 1961 to research the best achievement to counter the Soviets' lead, Johnson responded that the US had an even chance of beating them to a crewed lunar landing, but not for anything less. Kennedy seized on Apollo as the ideal focus for efforts in space. He ensured continuing funding, shielding space spending from the 1963 tax cut, but diverting money from other NASA scientific projects. These diversions dismayed NASA's leader, James E. Webb, who perceived the need for NASA's support from the scientific community. The Moon landing required development of the large Saturn V launch vehicle, which achieved a perfect record: zero catastrophic failures or launch vehicle-caused mission failures in thirteen launches. For the program to succeed, its proponents would have to defeat criticism from politicians both on the left (more money for social programs) and on the right (more money for the military). By emphasizing the scientific payoff and playing on fears of Soviet space dominance, Kennedy and Johnson managed to swing public opinion: by 1965, 58 percent of Americans favored Apollo, up from 33 percent two years earlier. After Johnson became President in 1963, his continuing defense of the program allowed it to succeed in 1969, as Kennedy had planned. Soviet strategy Main article: Soviet Moonshot Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev said in October 1963 the USSR was "not at present planning flight by cosmonauts to the Moon," while insisting that the Soviets had not dropped out of the race. Only after another year did the USSR fully commit itself to a Moon-landing attempt, which ultimately failed. At the same time, Kennedy had suggested various joint programs, including a possible Moon landing by Soviet and U.S. astronauts and the development of better weather-monitoring satellites, eventually resulting in the Apollo-Soyuz mission. Khrushchev, sensing an attempt by Kennedy to steal Russian space technology, rejected the idea at first: if the USSR went to the Moon, it would go alone. Though Khrushchev was eventually warming up to the idea, but the realization of a joint Moon landing was choked by Kennedy's assassination.[27] Sergey Korolev, the Soviet space program's chief designer, had started promoting his Soyuz craft and the N1 launcher rocket that would have the capability of carrying out a human Moon landing. Khrushchev directed Korolev's design bureau to arrange further space firsts by modifying the existing Vostok technology, while a second team started building a completely new launcher and craft, the Proton booster and the Zond, for a human cislunar flight in 1966. In 1964 the new Soviet leadership gave Korolev the backing for a Moon landing effort and brought all crewed projects under his direction. With Korolev's death and the failure of the first Soyuz flight in 1967, coordination of the Soviet Moon landing program quickly unraveled. The Soviets built a landing craft and selected cosmonauts for a mission that would have placed Alexei Leonov on the Moon's surface, but with the successive launch failures of the N1 booster in 1969, plans for a crewed landing suffered first delay and then cancellation. A program of automated return vehicles was begun, in the hope of being the first to return lunar rocks. This had several failures. It eventually succeeded with Luna 16 in 1970.[28] But this had little impact, because the Apollo 11 and Apollo 12 lunar landings and rock returns had already taken place by then. Apollo missions Astronaut Buzz Aldrin, Lunar Module pilot of the first lunar landing mission, poses for a photograph beside the deployed United States flag during an Apollo 11 Extravehicular Activity (EVA) on the lunar surface. In total, twenty-four U.S. astronauts have traveled to the Moon. Three have made the trip twice, and twelve have walked on its surface. Apollo 8 was a lunar-orbit-only mission, Apollo 10 included undocking and Descent Orbit Insertion (DOI), followed by LM staging to CSM redocking, while Apollo 13, originally scheduled as a landing, ended up as a lunar fly-by, by means of free return trajectory; thus, none of these missions made landings. Apollo 7 and Apollo 9 were Earth-orbit-only missions. Apart from the inherent dangers of crewed Moon expeditions as seen with Apollo 13, one reason for their cessation according to astronaut Alan Bean is the cost it imposes in government subsidies.[29] Human Moon landings Mission name     Lunar lander     Lunar landing date     Lunar liftoff date     Lunar landing site     Duration on lunar surface (DD:HH:MM)     Crew     Number of EVAs     Total EVA Time (HH:MM) Apollo 11     Eagle     20 July 1969     21 July 1969     Sea of Tranquility     0:21:31     Neil Armstrong, Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin     1     2:31 Apollo 12     Intrepid     19 November 1969     21 November 1969     Ocean of Storms     1:07:31     Charles "Pete" Conrad, Alan Bean     2     7:45 Apollo 14     Antares     5 February 1971     6 February 1971     Fra Mauro     1:09:30     Alan B. Shepard, Edgar Mitchell     2     9:21 Apollo 15     Falcon     30 July 1971     2 August 1971     Hadley Rille     2:18:55     David Scott, James Irwin     3     18:33 Apollo 16     Orion     21 April 1972     24 April 1972     Descartes Highlands     2:23:02     John Young, Charles Duke     3     20:14 Apollo 17     Challenger     11 December 1972     14 December 1972     Taurus–Littrow     3:02:59     Eugene Cernan, Harrison "Jack" Schmitt     3     22:04 Other aspects of the successful Apollo landings File:AP11 FINAL APPROACH.ogvPlay media Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin land the first Apollo Lunar Module on the Moon, 20 July 1969, creating Tranquility Base. Apollo 11 was the first of six Apollo program lunar landings. President Richard Nixon had speechwriter William Safire prepare a condolence speech for delivery in case Armstrong and Aldrin became marooned on the Moon's surface and could not be rescued.[30] In 1951, science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke forecast that a man would reach the Moon by 1978.[31] On 16 August 2006, the Associated Press reported that NASA is missing the original Slow-scan television tapes (which were made before the scan conversion for conventional TV) of the Apollo 11 Moon walk. Some news outlets have mistakenly reported the SSTV tapes found in Western Australia, but those tapes were only recordings of data from the Apollo 11 Early Apollo Surface Experiments Package.[32] The tapes were found in 2008 and sold at auction in 2019 for the 50th anniversary of the landing.[33] Scientists believe the six American flags planted by astronauts have been bleached white because of more than 40 years of exposure to solar radiation.[34] Using LROC images, five of the six American flags are still standing and casting shadows at all of the sites, except Apollo 11.[35] Astronaut Buzz Aldrin reported that the flag was blown over by the exhaust from the ascent engine during liftoff of Apollo 11.[35] Late 20th century–Early 21st century uncrewed crash landings Hiten (Japan) Launched on 24 January 1990, 11:46 UTC. At the end of its mission, the Japanese lunar orbiter Hiten was commanded to crash into the lunar surface and did so on 10 April 1993 at 18:03:25.7 UT (11 April 03:03:25.7 JST).[36] Lunar Prospector (US) Lunar Prospector was launched on 7 January 1998. The mission ended on 31 July 1999, when the orbiter was deliberately crashed into a crater near the lunar south pole after the presence of water ice was successfully detected.[37] SMART-1 (ESA) Launched 27 September 2003, 23:14 UTC from the Guiana Space Centre in Kourou, French Guiana. At the end of its mission, the ESA lunar orbiter SMART-1 performed a controlled crash into the Moon, at about 2 km/s. The time of the crash was 3 September 2006, at 5:42 UTC.[38] Chandrayaan-1 (India) The impactor, the Moon Impact Probe, an instrument on Chandrayaan-1 mission, impacted near Shackleton crater at the south pole of the lunar surface at 14 November 2008, 20:31 IST. Chandrayaan-1 was launched on 22 October 2008, 00:52 UTC.[39] Chang'e 1 (China) The Chinese lunar orbiter Chang'e 1, executed a controlled crash onto the surface of the Moon on 1 March 2009, 20:44 GMT, after a 16-month mission. Chang'e 1 was launched on 24 October 2007, 10:05 UTC.[40] SELENE (Japan) SELENE or Kaguya after successfully orbiting the Moon for a year and eight months, the main orbiter was instructed to impact on the lunar surface near the crater Gill at 18:25 UTC on 10 June 2009.[41] SELENE or Kaguya was launched on 14 September 2007. LCROSS (US) The LCROSS data collecting shepherding spacecraft was launched together with the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) on 18 June 2009 on board an Atlas V rocket with a Centaur upper stage. On 9 October 2009, at 11:31 UTC, the Centaur upper stage impacted the lunar surface, releasing the kinetic energy equivalent of detonating approximately 2 tons of TNT (8.86 GJ).[42] Six minutes later at 11:37 UTC, the LCROSS shepherding spacecraft also impacted the surface.[43] GRAIL (US) The GRAIL mission consisted of two small spacecraft: GRAIL A (Ebb), and GRAIL B (Flow). They were launched on 10 September 2011 on board a Delta II rocket. GRAIL A separated from the rocket about nine minutes after launch, and GRAIL B followed about eight minutes later.[44][45] The first probe entered orbit on 31 December 2011 and the second followed on 1 January 2012.[46] The two spacecraft impacted the Lunar surface on 17 December 2012.[47] LADEE (US) LADEE was launched on 7 September 2013.[48] The mission ended on 18 April 2014, when the spacecraft's controllers intentionally crashed LADEE into the far side of the Moon,[49][50] which, later, was determined to be near the eastern rim of Sundman V crater.[51][52] 21st century uncrewed soft landings and attempts Chang'e 3 (China) On 14 December 2013 at 13:12 UTC[53] Chang'e 3 soft-landed a rover on the Moon. This was the first lunar soft landing since Luna 24 on 22 August 1976.[54] Chang'e 4 (China) On 3 January 2019 at 2:26 UTC Chang'e 4 became the first spacecraft to land on the far side of the Moon.[55] Beresheet (Israel) On 22 February 2019 at 01:45 UTC, SpaceX launched the Beresheet lunar lander, developed by Israel's SpaceIL organization. Launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida on a Falcon 9 booster, with the lander being one of three payloads on the rocket. Beresheet arrived near the Moon using a slow but fuel-efficient trajectory. Taking six weeks and several increasingly large orbits around the Earth, it first achieved a large elliptical orbit around Earth with an apogee near 400,000 kilometers (250,000 mi). At that point, with a short deceleration burn, it was caught by the Moon's gravity in a highly elliptical lunar orbit, an orbit which was circularized and reduced in diameter over a week's time, before attempting a landing on the Moon's surface on 11 April 2019. The mission was the first Israeli, and the first privately funded, lunar landing attempt.[56] SpaceIL was originally conceived in 2011 as a venture to pursue the Google Lunar X Prize. On 11 April 2019 Beresheet crashed on the surface of the Moon, as a result of a main engine failure in the final descent. The Beresheet lunar lander's target landing destination was within Mare Serenitatis, a vast volcanic basin on the Moon's northern near side. Despite the failure, the mission represents the closest a private entity has come to a soft lunar landing.[57] Chandrayaan 2 (India) ISRO, the Indian National Space agency, launched Chandrayaan 2 on 22 July 2019.[58][59] It has 3 major modules: Orbiter, Lander and Rover. Each of these modules has scientific instruments from scientific research institutes in India and the US.[60] The 3,890 kg (8,580 lb) spacecraft was launched by the GSLV Mk III.[61] On 7 September 2019 at 1:50 IST Chandryaan 2's Vikram lander started the soft landing sequence. Contact was lost on 2.1 km (1.3 mi) above the lunar surface after the rough braking phase, and was not regained.[62] From the images of the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter and chandrayaan orbiter it was found that the Vikram lander had crashed on the Moon and was destroyed. Chang'e 5 (China) On 6 December 2020 at 21:42 UTC Chang'e 5 landed and collected the first lunar rock samples in over 40 years, and then returned the samples to Earth.[63][64] Landings on moons of other Solar System bodies Progress in space exploration has recently broadened the phrase moon landing to include other moons in the Solar System as well. The Huygens probe of the Cassini–Huygens mission to Saturn performed a successful moon landing on Titan in 2005. Similarly, the Soviet probe Phobos 2 came within 120 mi (190 km) of performing a landing on Mars' moon Phobos in 1989 before radio contact with that lander was suddenly lost. A similar Russian sample return mission called Fobos-Grunt ("grunt" means "soil" in Russian) launched in November 2011, but stalled in low Earth orbit. There is widespread interest in performing a future landing on Jupiter's moon Europa to drill down and explore the possible liquid water ocean beneath its icy surface.[65] Proposed future missions Main article: List of missions to the Moon § Proposed After the failure of the Vikram lander of Chandrayaan-2, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) plans to re-attempt a soft landing with a third lunar exploration mission, Chandrayaan-3. It is scheduled to launch in the third quarter of 2022.[66] The Lunar Polar Exploration Mission is a robotic space mission concept by ISRO and Japan's space agency JAXA[67][68] that would send a lunar rover and lander to explore south pole region of the Moon in 2024.[69][70] JAXA is likely to provide launch service using the future H3 rocket, along with responsibility for the rover. ISRO would be responsible for the lander.[68][71] Russia's Luna 25 lander is expected to launch in May 2022.[72] On 11 December 2017, US President Trump signed Space Policy Directive 1, which directed NASA to return to the Moon with a crewed mission, for "long-term exploration and use" and missions to other planets.[73] On 26 March 2019, Vice President Mike Pence formally announced that the mission will include the first female lunar astronaut.[74] The Artemis program has the goal of returning to the Moon with new launch systems.[75] Historical empirical evidence Main article: Moon landing conspiracy theories Many conspiracists hold that the Apollo Moon landings were a hoax;[76] however, empirical evidence is readily available to show that human Moon landings did occur. Anyone on Earth with an appropriate laser and telescope system can bounce laser beams off three retroreflector arrays left on the Moon by Apollo 11,[77] 14 and 15, verifying deployment of the Lunar Laser Ranging Experiment at historically documented Apollo Moon landing sites and so proving equipment constructed on Earth was successfully transported to the surface of the Moon. In addition, in August 2009 NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter began to send back high resolution photos of the Apollo landing sites. 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"First privately funded lunar landing". NBC News. "First privately funded moon lander crash-lands". Science & Innovation. 11 April 2019. Retrieved 11 April 2019. "India announces new date for space launch". BBC News. 18 July 2019. Retrieved 21 July 2019. "India moon mission set to launch a week after it was aborted". The Washington Post. 22 July 2019. Archived from the original on 22 July 2019. "'Chandrayaan 2 will carry NASA's laser instruments to Moon'". The Hindu. PTI. 26 March 2019. ISSN 0971-751X. Retrieved 14 April 2019. "ISRO likely to postpone Chandrayaan-2 launch as scientists scramble to meet revised deadline". The New Indian Express. Retrieved 14 April 2019. Gray, Tyler (6 September 2019). "ISRO lose contact with Chandrayaan-2 lander during final descent". NASA Spaceflight.com. Retrieved 10 September 2019. "Chinese spacecraft sets off on Moon sample quest". BBC News. 23 November 2020. Retrieved 28 November 2020. Jones, Andrew (6 December 2020). "China's Chang'e 5 aces lunar orbit docking needed to bring moon samples home". Space.com. Retrieved 7 December 2020. Grush, Loren (8 October 2018). "Future spacecraft landing on Jupiter's moon Europa may have to navigate jagged blades of ice". The Verge. "Delayed due to -19, Isro to launch Chandrayaan-3 in third quarter of 2022". India Today. 28 July 2021. Retrieved 3 August 2021. "India's next Moon shot will be bigger, in pact with Japan". The Times of India. 7 July 2019. Retrieved 21 June 2019. "For our next mission – Chandrayaan-3 – which will be accomplished in collaboration with JAXA (Japanese Space Agency), we will invite other countries too to participate with their payloads." "Episode 82: Jaxa and International Collaboration with Professor Fujimoto Masaki". AstrotalkUK. 4 January 2019. Retrieved 21 June 2019. After Reaching Mars, India's Date With Venus In 2023 Confirmed, Says ISRO. U. Tejonmayam, India Times. 18 May 2019. Shimbun, The Yomiuri (30 July 2019). "Japan, India to team up in race to discover water on moon". The Japan News. Retrieved 30 July 2019. Hoshino, Takeshi; Ohtake, Makiko; Karouji, Yuzuru; Shiraishi, Hiroaki (May 2019). "Current status of a Japanese lunar polar exploration mission". Archived from the original on 25 July 2019. Retrieved 25 July 2019. "Запуск станции «Луна-25» запланирован на май 2022 года" [The launch of the Luna-25 spacecraft is scheduled for May 2022]. Roscosmos (in Russian). 20 August 2021. Retrieved 20 August 2021. "Text of Remarks at Signing of Trump Space Policy Directive 1 and List of Attendees" Archived 12 May 2018 at the Wayback Machine, Marcia Smith, Space Policy Online, 11 December 2017, accessed 21 August 2018. Smith-Schoenwalder, Cecelia (26 March 2019). "Pence Tells NASA to Put Americans on the Moon in 5 Years". US News and World Report. Retrieved 20 February 2021. White House endorses Artemis program "Photos: 8 Moon-Landing Hoax Myths – Busted". National Geographic. 16 July 2009. Retrieved 17 July 2014. "Apollo 11 Experiment Still Going Strong after 35 Years", JPL 20 July 2004. "LRO Sees Apollo Landing Sites". NASA. 17 July 2009. Retrieved 2 July 2011.     Snierson, Dan. "President Obama: Mythbusters proves we did land on the moon". Entertainment Weekly. Retrieved 22 September 2020. Further reading     James Gleick, "Moon Fever" [review of Oliver Morton, The Moon: A History of the Future; Apollo's Muse: The Moon in the Age of Photography, an exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City, 3 July – 22 September 2019; Douglas Brinkley, American Moonshot: John F. Kennedy and the Great Space Race; Brandon R. Brown, The Apollo Chronicles: Engineering America's First Moon Missions; Roger D. Launius, Reaching for the Moon: A Short History of the Space Race; Apollo 11, a documentary film directed by Todd Douglas Miller; and Michael Collins, Carrying the Fire: An Astronaut's Journeys (50th Anniversary Edition)] External links     NASA's page on Moon landings, missions, etc. (includes information on other space agencies' missions.)     Moon missions (United States) at Curlie     Project Apollo Archive Flickr Gallery: an independently organized collection of high-res photos for the Moon Landing and the Apollo Missions.     Apollo in Real Time: an independently organized collection of different Apollo missions media, creating a comprehensive and interactive documentation of Apollo missions.     vte Spacecraft missions to the Moon Exploration programs         American         Apollo Artemis CLPS Lunar Orbiter Lunar Precursor Pioneer Ranger Surveyor Chinese (Chang'e) Indian (Chandrayaan) Japanese Russian         Luna-Glob Soviet         Crewed Luna Lunokhod Zond Active missions     Orbiters         ARTEMIS Chang'e 5-T1 (service module) Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Queqiao (relay satellite at L2) Chandrayaan-2 Orbiter Landers         Chang'e 3 Chang'e 4 Rovers         Yutu-2 Past missions     Crewed landings         Apollo 11 12 14 15 16 17 (List of Apollo astronauts) Orbiters         Apollo 8 10         Apollo Lunar Module Chang'e 1 2 5 Chandrayaan-1 Clementine Explorer 35 49 GRAIL Hiten LADEE Longjiang-2 Luna 10 11 12 14 19 22 Lunar Orbiter 1 2 3 4 5 Lunar Prospector PFS-1 PFS-2 SMART-1 SELENE (Kaguya, Okina, Ouna) Impactors         LCROSS Luna 2 Moon Impact Probe Ranger 4 6 7 8 9 Landers         Apollo Lunar Module ×6 Chang'e 5 Luna 9 13 16 17 20 21 23 24 Surveyor 1 3 5 6 7 Rovers         Lunar Roving Vehicle         Apollo 15 16 17 Lunokhod 1 2 Yutu Sample return         Apollo 11 12 14 15 16 17 Luna 16 20 24 Chang'e 5 Failed landings         Surveyor 2 4 Luna 5 7 8 15 18 Beresheet Vikram / Pragyan Flybys         4M Apollo 13 AsiaSat-3 / HGS-1 Chang'e 5-T1 / Xiaofei Geotail Galileo ICE Longjiang-1 Luna 1 3 4 6 Mariner 10 Nozomi Pioneer 4 Ranger 5 STEREO TESS WMAP Wind Zond 3 5 6 7 8 PAS-22 Planned missions     Artemis         Artemis 1 (2022)         ArgoMoon BioSentinel CuSP EQUULEUS LunaH-Map Lunar IceCube NEA Scout OMOTENASHI LunIR Team Miles Artemis 2 (2024) Lunar Gateway Artemis 3 (2025) Artemis 4 (2026) Artemis 5 (2027) Artemis 6 (2028) Artemis 7 (2029) Artemis 8 (2030) CLPS         CAPSTONE (May 2022) IM-1 (Q3 2022) Peregrine M1 (2022)         Asagumo CubeRover Uni XL-1 (Nov 2023)         MoonRanger VIPER (Nov 2023) Blue Ghost (2023) Luna-Glob         Luna 25 (Jul 2022) Luna 26 (2024) Luna 27 (Aug 2025) Luna 28 (2027) Luna 29 (2028) Luna 30 (2030s) Luna 31 (2030s) CLEP         Queqiao2 (2024) Chang'e 6 (2024) Chang'e 7 (2024) Chang'e 8 (2027) Others         SLIM (2022) KPLO (Aug 2022) Hakuto-R M1 (2022) Cislunar Explorers (2022) CU-E3 (2022) Lunar Flashlight (2022) Chandrayaan-3 (2023) #dearMoon project (2023) Beresheet 2 (2024) DESTINY+ (2024) Hakuto-R M2 (2024) ispace M3 (2024) Lunar Pathfinder (2024) Lunar Trailblazer (2025) International Lunar Research Station (mid-late 2020s) Proposed missions     Robotic         Lunar Polar Exploration Mission ALINA Artemis-7 Blue Moon BOLAS Garatéa-L ISOCHRON Lunar Crater Radio Telescope McCandless Moon Diver Crewed         DSE-Alpha Boeing Lunar Lander Lockheed Martin Lunar Lander Lunar Orbital Station Cancelled / concepts         Altair Baden-Württemberg 1 European Lunar Explorer First Lunar Outpost International Lunar Network LEO LK Lunar-A Lunar Lander Lunar Mission One Lunar Observer Lunokhod 3 MoonLITE MoonRise OrbitBeyond Project Harvest Moon Prospector Resource Prospector SELENE-2 Ukrselena See also         Colonization of the Moon Google Lunar X Prize List of lunar probes List of missions to the Moon List of artificial objects on the Moon Lunar resources Apollo 17 Moon mice Moon landing conspiracy theories Apollo 11 anniversaries List of crewed lunar lander designs     Missions are ordered by launch date. Crewed missions are in italics.     vte Crewed lunar spacecraft Orbiters         Retired         Apollo command and service module Cancelled         LK-1 / LK-700 (VA) Zond (Soyuz 7K-L1) LOK (Soyuz 7K-L3) Future         Orion Orel      Apollo 16 LEM Landers         Retired         Apollo Lunar Module Canceled         Lunniy Korabl Altair Proposed         Starship Lunar Gateway‎ Lunar Orbital Station Boeing Lunar Lander Lockheed Martin Lunar Lander Blue Moon Related         Moon landing         conspiracy theories List of lunar probes List of artificial objects on the Moon List of missions to the Moon     vte People who have traveled to the Moon Walked on the Moon         Neil Armstrong (Apollo 11) Buzz Aldrin (Apollo 11) Pete Conrad (Apollo 12) Alan Bean (Apollo 12) Alan Shepard (Apollo 14) Edgar Mitchell (Apollo 14) David Scott (Apollo 15) James Irwin (Apollo 15) John Young (Apollo 16) Charles Duke (Apollo 16) Gene Cernan (Apollo 17) Harrison Schmitt (Apollo 17) Flew to the Moon without landing         William Anders (Apollo 8) Frank Borman (Apollo 8) Jim Lovell (Apollo 8, Apollo 13) Thomas Stafford (Apollo 10) Michael Collins (Apollo 11) Dick Gordon (Apollo 12) Fred Haise (Apollo 13) Jack Swigert (Apollo 13) Stuart Roosa (Apollo 14) Al Worden (Apollo 15) Ken Mattingly (Apollo 16) Ronald Evans (Apollo 17)     Apollo program Saturn V Command and Service Module Lunar Module Lunar Roving Vehicle     vte The Moon Outline Physical properties         Internal structure Topography Atmosphere Gravity field         Hill sphere Magnetic field Sodium tail Moonlight         Earthshine      A full moon Orbit         Lunar distance Orbital elements         Distance             Perigee and apogee Libration Nodes             Nodal period Precession Syzygy         New moon Full moon Eclipses             Lunar eclipse                 Total penumbral lunar eclipse Tetrad Solar eclipse Solar eclipses on the Moon Eclipse cycle Supermoon Tide         Tidal force Tidal locking Tidal acceleration Tidal range Lunar station Surface and features         Selenography Terminator Hemispheres         Near side Far side Poles         North pole South pole             Face Maria         List Mountains         Peak of eternal light Valleys Volcanic features         Domes Calderas Lava tubes Craters         List Ray systems Permanently shadowed craters South Pole–Aitken basin Soil         swirls Rilles Wrinkle ridges Rocks         Lunar basalt 70017 Water Space weathering         Micrometeorite Sputtering Quakes Transient lunar phenomenon Selenographic coordinate system Science         Observation Libration Lunar theory Origin         Giant-impact hypothesis             Theia Lunar magma ocean Geology         Timescale             Late Heavy Bombardment Lunar meteorites KREEP Experiments         Lunar laser ranging ALSEP Lunar sample displays         Apollo 11 Apollo 17 Lunar seismology Exploration         Missions         Apollo program Explorers Probes Landing Colonization         Moonbase Tourism Lunar resources Time-telling and navigation         Lunar calendar Lunisolar calendar Month         Lunar month             Nodal period Fortnight Sennight Lunar station Lunar distance Phases and names         New Full         Names Crescent Super and micro Blood Blue Black Dark Wet Tetrad Daily phenomena         Moonrise Meridian passage Moonset Related         Lunar deities Lunar effect Moon illusion Pareidolia         Man in the Moon Moon rabbit Craters named after people Artificial objects on the Moon Memorials on the Moon Moon in science fiction         list Moon landing conspiracy theories Moon Treaty "Moon is made of green cheese" Natural satellite Double planet Lilith (hypothetical second moon) Splitting of the Moon
  • Condition: New
  • Sub-Type: Coin
  • Type: Space Exploration
  • Period: 1951 to Present
  • Material: Gold
  • Country/Region of Manufacture: United States

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