Walter Cunningham, the last astronaut of the Apollo 7 mission, has died
Sylvie Claire / January 5, 2023
Walter Cunningham, the only astronaut from the first successful manned space mission of the Apollo program who was still alive, died Tuesday at the age of 90, Nasa said.
Cunningham was one of three astronauts aboard the 1968 Apollo 7 mission, an 11-day space flight that provided live television coverage as the spacecraft orbited the Earth, paving the way for the moon landing less than a year later. The Apollo 7 astronauts even won an Emmy Award for their daily television reports from space. Apollo 7 was NASA's first manned space mission since the Apollo 1 crew died in a fire during a test in January 1967.
Walter Cunningham participated in Apollo 7 with Walter Schirra and Donn Eisele. The mission being a success, Nasa decided to send Apollo 8 in orbit around the Moon two months later as a prelude to the historic landing of Apollo 11 in July 1969.