First Lunar Landing Launched July 16, 1969, Apollo 11 made the first manned lunar landing on July 20. As Lt. Col. Michael
Collins orbited the Moon in the mother ship Columbia, Neil Armstrong and Col. Buzz Aldrin touched down on the basaltic regolith of Mare Tranquillitatis (Sea of Tranquility) in the
Lunar Module Eagle at 4:17:42 pm Eastern Daylight Time, with the historic report: "Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has
landed." Armstrong was the first out: he stepped on the surface at 10:56 pm that day. Dropping the last meter from the ladder, he said: "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind" (NASA later reported that the word a had been lost in transmission). On the Moon, Armstrong and Aldrin erected the American flag and set up scientific instruments, including a laser beam reflector, a seismometer that later transmitted evidence of a moonquake, and a sheet of aluminum foil to trap solar wind particles. The astronauts took soil and rock photographs and collected 24.4 kg (53.61 lb) of rock and dirt samples. Armstrong, the first out and the last back into the Lunar Module, spent 2 hours and 13 minutes outside. After Armstrong and Aldrin returned to Columbia in the ascent stage of the Eagle, Collins fired the Apollo main engine and at 12:56 am EDT on July 22 lifted the vessel out of lunar orbit for the return to Earth. The ascent stage of the Eagle was left in lunar orbit. The crew landed in the Pacific Ocean on July 24, 1969.