July 20

What happened on July 20 in aviation and space history.

• July 20, 1969

  Apollo 11: first crewed Moon landing

  Space milestone — On 20 July 1969 the lunar module Eagle (LM-5) was flown down to the surface of the Moon by Neil Armstrong, with navigational assistance from Buzz Aldrin, on the Apollo 11 mission. The lander had travelled from Earth to lunar orbit attached to the command module Columbia, crewed by Michael Collins. The landing site was named Tranquility Base, announced by the astronauts themselves at touchdown.

• July 20, 1976

  Viking 1 lands on Mars

  Space milestone — On 20 July 1976 the Viking 1 lander touched down on Mars, becoming the first fully successful Mars lander in history. It was part of NASA's Viking programme, made up of two spacecraft each consisting of an orbiter and a lander. It operated for 2,307 days, or 2,245 Martian solar days, the longest extraterrestrial surface mission until the record was broken by the Opportunity rover on 19 May 2010.

• July 20, 2001

  "Mission X": short take-off, supersonic dash and vertical landing in a single X-35B sortie

  Record — Marine Corps Major Art Tomassetti performed an automatic short take-off at 80 knots, converted the propulsion system to conventional mode in flight, climbed to 25,000 feet and accelerated to Mach 1.05 before returning for a vertical landing. It was the first time a single aircraft had strung together a short take-off, a supersonic dash and a vertical landing in one mission. The demonstration, dubbed "Mission X", settled the underlying doubt about the feasibility of a supersonic STOVL fighter and weighed on the competition verdict three months later.