Walter Cunningham took half within the first profitable crewed mission of NASA’s lunar program
US astronaut Walter Cunningham, who took half in NASA’s landmark Apollo 7 mission in 1968, has died on the age of 90.
The area explorer handed away on Tuesday, his spouse Dot Cunningham introduced, with out revealing the reason for demise or the place it occurred.
Along with Walter M. Schirra, and Donn F. Eisele, Cunningham was a member of the Apollo 7 mission, which grew to become NASA’s first crewed area flight following the deaths of the three Apollo 1 astronauts in a launchpad hearth in 1967.
The Apollo 7 mission orbited Earth for eleven days between October 11 and 22, 1968, its goal being to check the flexibility to dock and rendezvous in area. Cunningham’s job on the crew was lunar module pilot.
The mission turned out to be an entire success for the US area company, paving the best way for the Moon touchdown lower than a yr later, in July 1969.
The Apollo 7 flight additionally made historical past as the primary NASA mission to broadcast stay TV from orbit. The three crew members went on air day by day, not solely educating the viewers about area, but in addition playing around and cracking jokes.
After returning to Earth, the astronauts obtained particular Emmy awards for his or her broadcast.
It was Cunningham’s solely area flight, who went on to work in engineering, enterprise and investing after leaving NASA. Nonetheless, he saved selling area exploration as a public speaker.
“I feel that people have to proceed increasing and pushing out the degrees at which they’re surviving in area,” he mentioned in one in all his final interviews in 2022.
NASA Administrator Invoice Nelson described Cunningham as “a fighter pilot, physicist, and an entrepreneur – however, above all, he was an explorer.” Alongside along with his crewmates, who’ve all additionally handed away, he “made historical past, paving the best way for the Artemis Era we see immediately,” Nelson mentioned, including that Cunningham’s contribution would all the time be remembered.
