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Manchester Evening News
Manchester Evening News
World
Jessica Sansome

When was the first Moon landing and how long does it take to get there?

It's not something everyone can say they have done and in the past 50 years only twelve people have walked the Moon.

On July 20, 2019 it will have been five decades since three humans stepped foot on the moon for the very first time.

In celebration of the milestone, Channel 4 will air two major documentaries which documents, minute-by-minute, the dramatic launch and the Moon landing.

The Moon Launch Live will air on Saturday (July 13) at 8pm followed by Moon Landing Live at 8pm on Wednesday July 20.

Commander Neil Armstrong, Command Module Pilot Michael Collins and Lunar Module Pilot Edwin 'Buzz' Aldrin went down in history for completing the 225,623-mile journey from Earth upon the Apollo 11.

Neil A. Armstrong, Michael Collins and Edwin E. Aldrin Jr were the first three astronauts to step foot on the Moon (Getty Images)

It began at Florida's Kennedy Space Center on July 16, 1969, taking the three astronauts around six days to reach the Moon.

On July 19 at around 5.21pm (UTC) Apollo 11 passed behind the Moon and orbited the lunar surface 30 times.

The following day, shortly after 12.52pm (UTC), Aldrin and Armstrong entered Eagle - the spacecraft used to get to the surface of the Moon.

It took around four hours after the Apollo Lunar Module Eagle un-docked from the main spacecraft for Armstrong to make the very first steps, deploying  TV camera for the transmission of the event to Earth and announcing: "The Eagle has landed. That's one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind."

Buzz Aldrin then became the second person to step foot on the moon around 20 minutes later.

It then took another four days, between July 21 and 24 for the spacecraft to make its journey back to Earth.

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