25TH ANNIVERSARY / APOLLO 11 MISSION : Flight to the Moon

On July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon--the first time any human had walked on the surface of another celestial body. The journey took 420,000 technicians eight years and $25 billion to achieve. More than 500 million people worldwide watched Armstrong on television.

Saturn V Launch Vehicle

First Stage

* Height: 138 feet

* Diameter: 33 feet

* Weight: Fueled 4,952,775 lbs.

* Engines: Five F-1

* Thrust: 7,500,000 lbs.

Second Stage

* Height: 81.5 feet

* Diameter: 33 feet

* Weight: Fueled 1,087,580 lbs.

* Engines: Five J-2

* Thrust: 1,153,712 lbs.

Third Stage

* Height: 59.3 feet

* Diameter: 33 feet

* Weight: Fueled 1,087,580 lbs.

* Engines: One J-2

* Thrust: 208,242 lbs.

Instrument Unit: 3 feet

* Panels blow apart

Lunar Module

Adapter

Service Module

Command Module

Launch Escape System

Height: 82. feet

Crew:

A) Commander: Neil Armstrong

B) Lunar module pilot: Buzz Aldrin

C) Command module pilot: Michael Collins

How Big

Saturn V Height: 363 ft.

Space Shuttle Height: 184 ft.

Going Where No Man Has Been Before

The Apollo 11 manned mission to the moon set the standard for space exploration. Here is a step-by-step look at the mission.

Key: Ascent / Descent

Orbit / Flight path

Flying to the Moon

1) Saturn launch pad

After a 28-hour countdown, the 363-foot Saturn V rocket lifted three astronauts and their equipment flawlessly off the pad in one thunderous burst and they were headed for the moon.

Command and service module code name: Columbia

Lunar module code name: Eagle

2) Columbia / Eagle

Columbia mates with Eagle lunar module and continues to moon.

3) Columbia module is separated from lunar module.

4) Columbia continues orbiting the moon.

5) Eagle begins descent.

6) Landing site

Freeze Frame: Descent

On final approach looking out his windows, Armstrong sees that the computer-chosen landing site is a large crater covered with large rocks. He takes control and picks a new landing site.

Planned flight path

Armstrong takes manual control of Eagle

Armstrong’s new flight path

Freeze Frame: ‘The Giant Leap’

The craft settles down with a jolt almost like that of a jet landing on a runway. Armstrong immediately radios Mission Control: “The Eagle has landed.” Later Armstrong moves down the ladder and halts on the last step, then puts his left foot on the moon and radios, “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”

Ladder

Egress platform

Forward hatch

Windows

Rendezvous radar antenna

Docking hatch

VHF antenna

Aft equipment bay

RCS thrust chamber assembly

Landing gear

Landing pad

Armstrong and Aldrin explored the moon’s surface for two hours and 56 minutes, never straying more than 200 feet from the lunar lander.

With no atmosphere to carry a wind to disturb them, the footprints the astronauts left in the lunar dust should be visible for half a million years or more.

Freeze Frame: Ascent

Using the descent stage as a launch pad, ascent engines thrust the Eagle upward at 80 feet per second into lunar orbit.

Descent stage left behind

Flying Back to Earth

1) Landing site

2) Eagle blast back into orbit.

3) Eagle: The Eagle crew transfers to command module and leaves the rest of lunar module behind.

4) Columbia: After orbiting, command module is separated from lunar module.

5) Columbia with all crew onboard fires its engines and heads fpr Earth.

6) Crew in command module separates from service module and begins re-entry.

They reenter and splash down in Pacific Ocean.

Freeze Frame: Splashdown

After Eagle is jettisoned the Columbia begins the long journey home. Columbia splashes down 825 nautical miles from Honolulu and is recovered by the Navy ship Hornet.

Items Left Behind

* The 12 astronauts who explored the moon left behind more than their footprints.

* They also left their boots.

* On the Sea of Tranquility and the Ocean of Storms, they left $517 million worth of equipment, momentos and junk.

Among other things, the astronauts left behind:

* Six lunar vehicles worth a total of $270 million.

* Three battery-powered moon rovers worth $6 million.

* Five science laboratories worth $125 million.

* Television and camera gear worth $4 million.

* Six American flags, a plaque honoring 14 dead U.S. and Soviet spacemen, a piece of the Wright Brothers’ biplane, and two golf balls hit by astronaut Alan B. Shepard Jr. on the longest--and only--drives in the history of the moon.

Source: National Aeronautics and Space Administration