US Astronaut Neil Alden Armstrong passed away

Neil Alden Armstrong, the US Astronaut, who got his name written in the history of mankind after he became the first person on the Earth to walk on the surface of moon, passed away on 25 August 2012. He was 82.

At the age of 38, Armstrong, as the commander of the Apollo 11 mission, became the first human to land on the moon on 20 July 1969. Right after he stepped on the surface of moon, Armstrong uttered that famous sentence "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind."

Born on 5 August 1930 in Wapakoneto, Ohio, US, Neil Armstrong was an American astronaut, test pilot, aerospace engineer, university professor and United States Naval Aviator. The Apollo 11 mission was his last mission to space. Armstrong was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Richard Nixon along with Collins and Aldrin, the Congressional Space Medal of Honor by President Jimmy Carter in 1978, and the Congressional Gold Medal in 2009.

Apollo 11 Mission

Apollo 11 was the space flight which landed Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, two humans for the first time on the surface on moon. The landing of Apollo 11, also called mission insignia, on the lunar surface marked America’s triumph in the Cold War space race that began on 4 October 1957, with the launch of the Soviet Union’s Sputnik 1, a satellite that sent shock waves around the world.