IT'S TIME...
To follow Apollo 11’s journey to the moon.
THE LAUNCH
Saturn V launched from Pad 39A at Cape Kennedy (now Cape Canaveral), Florida, before hundreds of thousands of spectators.
Aboard Apollo 11 were Armstrong, Aldrin, and command module pilot Michael Collins.
DESCENT
On the morning of July 20, Armstrong and Aldrin crawled from the command module (Columbia) through an interconnecting tunnel into the lunar module, Eagle.wards the moon.
From then, the Apollo 11 spacecraft became two separate spacecrafts and the Eagle made its way towards the moon.
EAGLE
The Eagle was the first crewed vehicle to land on the Moon, carrying Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin.
Also included, was the Early Apollo Scientific Experiment Package (EASEP), which consisted of self-contained experiments to be deployed and left on the moon’s surface, and other scientific and sample collection apparatus.
COLUMBIA
The Command Module, "Columbia," was the living quarters for the crew during most of the mission.
Columbia was one of three parts of the complete Apollo spacecraft, including the Service Module and the Eagle.
The Command Module was the only portion of the spacecraft to return to Earth.
TOUCHDOWN
Armstrong hovered Eagle until he found a clear area on which to descend. The contact light went on inside the cockpit, as the probes dangling below Eagle’s footpads signalled contact with the ground.
Armstrong radioed at 4:17 PM (ETD) to announce their touchdown in the Sea of Tranquility.
ONE SMALL STEP
At 10:56 PM EDT, Armstrong took his first steps onto the lunar soil.
He immediately described the surface as “fine and powdery” and said that there was no difficulty moving about. Aldrin joined about 20 minutes later.
SPLASHDOWN
Splashdown of Apollo 11 occurred in the Pacific Ocean about 1,400 km west of Hawaii on July 24.
The astronauts were immediately placed in quarantine in a van on the recovery ship. From there, they were transferred into the 58-room Lunar Receiving Laboratory in Houston.
The quarantine lasted 21 days from the time Eagle took off from the Moon. During that period, the astronauts were checked for any diseases they might have picked up on the Moon, and the lunar samples were subjected to preliminary analysis.
