World Book Student

Apollo 11 was the first space mission to land a human being on the moon. On July 16, 1969, astronauts Michael Collins, Edwin E. (Buzz) Aldrin, Jr., and Neil A. Armstrong blasted off from Cape Kennedy, now called Cape Canaveral. The Apollo lunar landing mission used two spacecraft—a command module that stayed in orbit around the moon, and a lunar module that separated from the command module, landed the astronauts on the moon, and brought them back to the command module. On July 20, four days after liftoff, Armstrong and Aldrin piloted the lunar module to a successful landing on a large, flat area of the moon called the Sea of Tranquility. While on the moon, the astronauts set up scientific equipment and collected rocks and soil samples. They returned to Earth on July 24.

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