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Episode nine: Tranquility Base. The final part of Apollo 11’s descent to the moon.

The spacecraft Eagle is now 7,500 ft above the lunar surface, nine minutes since its powered descent began. The craft tilts upright as it descends, so that Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin can get a good view of the area where they are on course to land. It turns out not to be a good place.

As the craft drops lower, Neil Armstrong sees that they are heading towards an area strewn with large boulders. He now takes more manual control over Eagle to avoid these hazards. Mission Control cannot see what he is seeing but they are tracking his trajectory and velocity. They are amazed at his flight path, as he shoots horizontally over the surface at high speed. The tension in Houston is now intense because the flight controllers monitoring the Eagle’s fuel level can see it is running low.

They count down to 60 seconds of fuel remaining, and then 30 seconds…

• Produced by Andrew Luck-Baker for 主播大秀 World Service

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