Neil Armstrong commanded the Apollo 11 mission.
Apollo 11 . Mission commander Neil Armstrong and pilot Buzz Aldrin , both American , landed the lunar module Eagle on July 20 , 1969 , at 20:18 UTC . Neil Armstrong . He made his first space flight as command pilot of Gemini 8 in March 1966 , becoming NASA 's first civilian astronaut to fly in space . Armstrong 's second and last spaceflight was as commander of Apollo 11 , the first manned Moon landing mission in July 1969 .