On this day, the Lunar Module Eagle, carrying Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, landed on the surface of the moon. The two astronauts, together with Michael Collins who remained in lunar orbit in the Command Module Columbia, were the crew of Apollo 11, the first spaceflight to successfully land humans on the moon. Apollo 11 took off from the Kennedy Space Centre on 16th July and was the fifth crewed mission of NASA’s Apollo program. The Apollo spacecraft had three parts: a command module (the only part that returned to Earth), a service module which supported the command module with propulsion, electrical power, oxygen, and water, and a lunar module that had two stages—a descent stage for landing on the Moon and an ascent stage to place the astronauts back into lunar orbit. Armstrong’s first step onto the lunar surface was broadcast on live TV to a worldwide audience. His first words were, “One small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.”
