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How long apollo 11 on moon?

Short answer

Twenty-one hours and 36 minutes, from Eagle's touchdown at 20:17 UTC on 20 July 1969 to lift-off the following day. Only part of that was spent outside: the single moonwalk by Armstrong and Aldrin lasted 2 hours and 31 minutes, the rest going on checks, photographs, a meal and an uncomfortable attempt to sleep.

How long apollo 11 on moon?
Aldrin stands beside the deployed U S. flag

The clock on the surface

Eagle settled onto the Sea of Tranquillity at 20:17 UTC on 20 July 1969 with very little manoeuvring propellant left in its tanks. The flight plan had called for a rest period before the walk; the crew asked to go outside first and mission control agreed. Armstrong opened the hatch some six hours after landing, and both men were back inside, repressurised and working through housekeeping, long before the ascent stage fired to rejoin Michael Collins in Columbia. Total time with the landing legs on the Moon: 21 hours 36 minutes.

Two and a half hours outside

The moonwalk itself lasted 2 hours 31 minutes and was crowded. Armstrong scooped a contingency soil sample within minutes, insurance against an emergency lift-off; then came the flag, the plaque, a televised call from the White House, a seismometer, a laser retroreflector and the collection of roughly 21 kg of rock and dust. Both men also spent real time learning to move in one-sixth gravity, where a loping hop turned out to be more efficient than walking.

Why the stay was so short

The lunar module was a minimal machine. Its life-support consumables, battery capacity and cooling water were sized for a brief visit, and the ascent had to occur within a window that placed the two spacecraft in workable relative geometry. Above all, Apollo 11 was a test of whether landing and leaving worked at all, not an expedition. The geology came later, when the J-class missions carried a rover, larger consumables tanks and crews who stayed three days.

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