<P> At 02 : 39 UTC on Monday July 21 , 1969 , Armstrong opened the hatch , and at 02 : 51 UTC began his descent to the lunar surface . The Remote Control Unit controls on his chest kept him from seeing his feet . Climbing down the nine - rung ladder , Armstrong pulled a D - ring to deploy the Modular Equipment Stowage Assembly ( MESA ) folded against Eagle 's side and activate the TV camera , and at 02 : 56 : 15 UTC he set his left foot on the surface . The first landing used slow - scan television incompatible with commercial TV , so it was displayed on a special monitor and a conventional TV camera viewed this monitor , significantly reducing the quality of the picture . The signal was received at Goldstone in the United States but with better fidelity by Honeysuckle Creek Tracking Station in Australia . Minutes later the feed was switched to the more sensitive Parkes radio telescope in Australia . Despite some technical and weather difficulties , ghostly black and white images of the first lunar EVA were received and broadcast to at least 600 million people on Earth . Although copies of this video in broadcast format were saved and are widely available , recordings of the original slow scan source transmission from the lunar surface were accidentally destroyed during routine magnetic tape re-use at NASA . </P>
who was the astronaut who stepped on the moon with his left foot in 1969
Armstrong