The Apollo Moon landings

Why the United States went to the Moon

In the late 1950s and early 1960s the Soviet Union launched the first satellite and the first person into space. The United States felt it was falling behind in a contest with strong political stakes, often called the space race.

In May 1961 President John F. Kennedy asked Congress to commit to landing a person on the Moon and returning them safely before the decade ended. NASA built up the Mercury and Gemini programs to learn the basics of spaceflight, then turned to Apollo. In January 1967 a fire during a ground test killed the Apollo 1 crew, which led to major safety redesigns.

How a Moon mission worked

Each mission launched on a Saturn V, still one of the most powerful rockets ever flown. On top sat two spacecraft: the command and service module, which stayed in lunar orbit, and the lunar module, which carried two astronauts down to the surface.

The trip took about three days each way. After the surface stay, the top half of the lunar module lifted off, met the command module in orbit, and the crew headed home. Only the small cone-shaped capsule returned, splashing down in the ocean under parachutes.

Apollo 11 and the landings that followed

On July 20, 1969, the lunar module Eagle touched down in the Sea of Tranquility with Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, while Michael Collins circled overhead. Armstrong stepped onto the surface a few hours later, watched live on television by hundreds of millions of people.

Five more landings followed through December 1972. The later missions stayed up to about three days and carried a battery-powered rover, letting crews drive miles across the surface. In total 12 astronauts walked on the Moon. Apollo 17's Gene Cernan was the last person to step off it, and no one has been back since.

Apollo 13: a successful failure

In April 1970, on the way to the Moon, an oxygen tank in Apollo 13's service module exploded. The landing was called off, and the crew of three used the lunar module as a lifeboat, swinging around the Moon to head home.

With little power, heat or water, and carbon dioxide building up, the astronauts and ground teams improvised fixes, including a famous air filter adapter made from spare parts. The crew splashed down safely. The mission is remembered as a lesson in problem solving under pressure.

What the samples taught us

Apollo crews brought back about 842 pounds of rock, pebbles and soil. Scientists still study them, and new tools keep extracting fresh information.

The rocks showed that the Moon is about 4.5 billion years old and once had a molten surface, called a magma ocean. Their chemistry is very close to Earth's, which supports the idea that the Moon formed from debris thrown out when a Mars-sized body hit the young Earth. Instruments left on the surface measured moonquakes, and mirrors placed there are still used to bounce lasers off the Moon and measure its distance to within about an inch.

Artemis: going back, as of 2026

NASA's Artemis program aims to return people to the Moon, this time including the first woman and first person of color. Artemis I flew an uncrewed Orion capsule around the Moon in late 2022.

Artemis II launched on April 1, 2026, with NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch and Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen. They flew around the Moon and splashed down in the Pacific about ten days later, the first people to travel that far since 1972.

In 2026 NASA reshaped the plan. Artemis III, targeted for 2027, is now a test flight in Earth orbit to practice docking Orion with commercial lunar landers. The first crewed landing has moved to a later mission, currently planned for 2028. Dates like these often shift, so check NASA's Artemis page for the latest.