July 15, 2019 - Lunar Landing Golden Anniversary

Lunar Landing Golden Anniversary Fifty years ago this week, the world metaphorically stopped to watch two American astronauts take humanity’s first steps on another world. On July 20, 1969, at 10:56 PM ET, Neil Armstrong, Commander of the Apollo 11 mission, stepped onto the lunar surface, followed about 20 minutes later by Lunar Module Pilot Buzz Aldrin (above). The two spent a little more than two hours on the lunar surface before returning to their lunar module Eagle, which then launched them back into lunar orbit where they met up and docked with the Command Module Columbia, piloted by Michael Collins. The trio returned safely to Earth on July 24, meeting a challenge set by President Kennedy in 1961 of “landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth” before the end of the decade.

Image credit: NASA

Weekly Calendar

July 15 - 21, 2019

Holidays - Sky Events - Space History

Monday 15

1943: Jocelyn Bell Burnell born
1975: Apollo-Soyuz Test Project (Apollo 18) launched, last Apollo mission
2004: Aura satellite launched
2009: STS-127 Endeavour launched
2012: Soyuz TMA-05M launched carrying ISS Expedition 32/33 crew

Tuesday 16

Full Moon 5:38 PM ET
Partial Lunar Eclipse (Australia, Asia, Africa, S. America)

1969: Apollo 11 launched
1994: First fragment of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 impacts Jupiter
2011: Dawn spacecraft enters orbit around Vesta
2018: Astronomers announce discovery of 12 new moons of Jupiter

Wednesday 17

1850: John Adams Whipple takes first stellar photograph (Vega)
1970: Final HL-10 lifting body flight
1975: Apollo-Soyuz dock in orbit
1984: Soyuz T-12 launched, 100th human space flight

Thursday 18

1921: John Glenn born
1966: Gemini X launched
1980: India becomes seventh nation to launch its own satellite

Friday 19

Ceres appears stationary

1846: Edward Pickering born
1967: Explorer 35 launched
1985: NASA selects Christa McAuliffe as first teacher to travel in space
2019: Chinese Tiangong 2 space station deorbited

Saturday 20

Moon at apogee

1969: Apollo 11 astronauts become first humans walk on Moon
1976: Viking 1 lands on Mars
1999: Liberty Bell 7 capsule recovered from Atlantic Ocean after 38 years
2019: Soyuz MS-13 launched carrying ISS Expedition 60/61 crew