On what date did Apollo 11 launch from Kennedy Space Center?

Apollo 11 launched from Kennedy Space Center on July 16, 1969.

The spacecraft lifted off at 9:32 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time from Pad A at Launch Complex 39, now widely known as Launch Complex 39A. A 363-foot Saturn V rocket carried commander Neil Armstrong, command-module pilot Michael Collins, and lunar-module pilot Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin toward the Moon.

The launch date is easy to confuse with the mission’s other landmark dates. Apollo 11 entered lunar orbit on July 19, Armstrong and Aldrin landed in Eagle on July 20, and the crew splashed down in the Pacific Ocean on July 24. July 21 is associated with the astronauts’ return to lunar orbit and the first moonwalk’s date in some time-zone descriptions, not the launch.

The launch site was called Cape Kennedy in 1969, after the 1963 renaming of Cape Canaveral. The geographic name was restored to Cape Canaveral in 1973, but Kennedy Space Center remained the name of NASA’s launch facility.