United Nations commemorates 55th anniversary of Apollo 11 with stamps from international missions to the Moon

— Photographs of the Moon captured by American, Russian, European, Japanese, Indian, Korean and Chinese spacecraft are the subject of new United Nations (UN) postage stamps commemorating the 55th anniversary of NASA's Apollo 11 lunar landing mission.

The United Nations Postal Administration (UNPA) will issue six postage stamps and three commemorative sheets on Saturday (July 20) to celebrate International Moon Day. Since 2021, the UN recognizes the day astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walked on the moon “to raise awareness of the commitment to sustainable lunar exploration by national and international space programs around the world.”

“Current lunar exploration is shrouded in ambitious plans, but expanding our hitherto pristine horizons must be done in a sustainable manner,” said Aarti Holla-Maini, director of the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs, in a statement appearing on the commemorative sheets. “The United Nations will leverage its unique convening power to foster the necessary dialogue on the way forward.”

The stamps and sheets will be issued in three denominations corresponding to the UNPA offices in New York (US dollars), Geneva (Swiss francs) and Vienna (euros).

The stamps, designed by Rorie Katz in collaboration with the UN, depict images from six different lunar missions, with three more depicted on the souvenir sheets. Stamp themes include:

The commemorative sheets also commemorate the United States' Apollo 11 mission, which landed on July 20, 1969; the former Soviet Union's Luna 2 robotic probe, which achieved the world's first moon landing on September 14, 1959; and China's Change'e-4, the world's first probe to land on the far side of the moon on January 3, 2019.

In addition to the stamps and sheets, UNPA has also designed pictorial postmarks for International Moon Day (one for each office) and they are Offering for sale First-day covers (stamped covers postmarked on the day the stamps are issued). Se-tenant stamps are limited to 12,000 per pair; 17,000 for the Apollo 11 commemorative sheet and 18,000 for each of the other two sheets.

Previous UNPA space stamps include a Collection of eight stamps from 2007 commemorating 50 years since the dawn of the space age; a 2011 release for the 50th anniversary of human space flight; a 2013 nebula-themed pair of stamps for World Space Week; a 2018 series commemorating the 50th anniversary of the first United Nations conference on the exploration and Peaceful uses of outer space; and a 2022 collection of six stamps and six commemorative sheets for Missions to Mars are launched by the United States, China and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).