On July 20 1969, American astronauts Neil Armstrong and Edwin ‘Buzz’ Aldrin became the first people to walk on the Moon. They had arrived in lunar orbit the day before with the third member of the Apollo 11 mission, Michael Collins, after a three-day flight from Earth.
Collins stayed in lunar orbit aboard the command module Columbia while Armstrong and Aldrin descended to the surface in the lunar module Eagle.
They spent a little less than a day on the surface, of which about 2 and a half hours was spent outside the lunar module. Their moonwalks took them no more than 100 metres away from the vehicle.
After the astronauts returned safely to Earth, another five NASA crewed lunar missions followed in their footsteps. The last, Apollo 17, landed on December 14 1972.
No human has been back since.
The Russian space agency Roscosmos has announced plans for a mission around 2030. NASA, meanwhile, has turned its eyes to Mars.
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