The last of the three astronaut aboard the first crewed Apollo spaceflight which orbited the Earth for 11 days in 1968 has died, US space agency NASA announced on Tuesday.
Walter Cunningham died in Houston aged 90 early on Tuesday morning, the agency said in a statement.
"Walt Cunningham was a fighter pilot, physicist, and an entrepreneur – but, above all, he was an explorer," NASA Administrator Bill Nelson was quoted as saying. "On Apollo 7, the first launch of a crewed Apollo mission, Walt and his crewmates made history, paving the way for the Artemis Generation we see today," he added.
"NASA will always remember his contributions to our nation's space program and sends our condolences to the Cunningham family."
Cunnigham and fellow astronauts Walter Schirra and Donn Fulton Eisele set off on the 11-day Apollo 7 space mission on October 11, 1968.
It proved a big success for NASA, with the tests conducted by the team during the flight providing important data that also helped pave the way for the moon landing one year later.
The Apollo 7 mission came some 18 months after three NASA astronauts died in a fire during a test conducted with the Apollo 1 capsule.
The Apollo 7 crew returned to Earth on October 22, 1968, after 263 hours and some 7.2 million kilometres in space.
The Apollo 7 spacecraft was equipped with a camera which enabled live transmissions that were broadcast on television - and even earned NASA an Emmy award.
Eisele died in 1987 while Schirra died in 2007.
Cunnigham was born in Creston, Iowa, on March 16, 1932. After completing a doctorate in physics, he was selected as a NASA astronaut in 1963.
After leaving the space agency in 1971, he went on to lead multiple technical and financial organizations and frequently hosted radio talk shows.
