Walter Cunningham, the last surviving astronaut on the first mission of NASA’s Apollo program has died. He was 90 years old. The American media report it, quoting his wife and the American space agency.
Cunningham was one of three astronauts on the 1968 Apollo 7 mission, an 11-day flight that made live broadcasts as it orbited the Earth, paving the way for the Moon landing less than a year later. It was the first mission since the deaths of the three Apollo 1 cosmonauts in a fire on the launch pad in 1967.
Cunningham, a civilian at the time, was crewed by US Navy Captain Walter M Schirra and US Air Force Major Donn F Eisele. Cunningham was the lunar module pilot in space flight.
The three Apollo 7 astronauts won a special Emmy award for their daily television reports from orbit, in which they clowned around, held humorous signs, and educated Earthlings about spaceflight. After his career at NASA, Cunningham worked in engineering and business, and became a public speaker and radio host. He also wrote a memoir about his life as an astronaut: The All-American Boys.