On this day in space! July 16, 1969: Apollo 11 launches to the moon

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Mankind's "one giant leap" started with a launch at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida

On July 16, 1969, NASA astronauts Buzz Aldrin, Neil Armstrong and Michael Collins blasted off on their famous mission to land and walk on the moon.

A view from the launch pad at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. (Image credit: NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center)
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Apollo 11 launched from NASA's historic launchpad 39A at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The astronauts lifted off on top of NASA's gigantic new Saturn V rocket.

Four days later, Neil Armstrong took "one giant leap" and became the first person to walk on the moon, followed by Buzz Aldrin. Michael Collins hung out inside the command module in lunar orbit while his crewmates went for a stroll, testing out their new spacesuits and collecting moonrocks.

On This Day in Space: See our full 365-day video archive!

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Hanneke Weitering
Hanneke Weitering
Contributing expert

Hanneke Weitering is a multimedia journalist in the Pacific Northwest reporting on the future of aviation at FutureFlight.aero and Aviation International News and was previously the Editor for Spaceflight and Astronomy news here at Space.com. As an editor with over 10 years of experience in science journalism she has previously written for Scholastic Classroom Magazines, MedPage Today and The Joint Institute for Computational Sciences at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. After studying physics at the University of Tennessee in her hometown of Knoxville, she earned her graduate degree in Science, Health and Environmental Reporting (SHERP) from New York University. Hanneke joined the Space.com team in 2016 as a staff writer and producer, covering topics including spaceflight and astronomy. She currently lives in Seattle, home of the Space Needle, with her cat and two snakes. In her spare time, Hanneke enjoys exploring the Rocky Mountains, basking in nature and looking for dark skies to gaze at the cosmos. 

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