2 Remaining Apollo 11 Astronauts To Return To Launch Pad On Anniversary
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (CBSDFW.COM/AP) — Apollo 11's astronauts are returning to the exact spot from where they flew to the moon 50 years ago.
NASA has invited Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins to Kennedy Space Center's Launch Complex 39A on Tuesday. They will mark the precise moment — 9:32 a.m. on July 16, 1969 — that their rocket departed on humanity's first moon landing. Mission commander Neil Armstrong — who took the first lunar footsteps — died in 2012.
It kicks off eight days of golden anniversary celebrations for each day of Apollo 11's voyage.
Also Tuesday morning, NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston will do a public countdown to the moment when the Saturn V rocket launched on the Apollo 11 mission. In Alabama, 5,000 model rockets are set to launch simultaneously at the U.S. Space and Rocket Center. At the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, Armstrong's newly restored spacesuit goes on display.
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