{"id":72824,"date":"2023-01-04T00:06:20","date_gmt":"2023-01-04T00:06:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/navytimes\/uncategorized\/2023\/01\/04\/veteran-apollo-7-astronaut-walter-cunningham-dead-at-90\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T14:23:34","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T14:23:34","slug":"veteran-apollo-7-astronaut-walter-cunningham-dead-at-90","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/navytimes\/veterans\/2023\/01\/04\/veteran-apollo-7-astronaut-walter-cunningham-dead-at-90\/","title":{"rendered":"Veteran, Apollo 7 astronaut Walter Cunningham dead at 90"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Walter Cunningham, the last surviving astronaut from the first successful crewed space mission in NASA\u2019s Apollo program, died Tuesday in Houston. He was 90.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

NASA confirmed Cunningham\u2019s death in a statement but did not include its cause. His family said through a spokesman, Jeff Carr, that Cunningham \u201cdied in the hospital of natural causes.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cunningham was one of three astronauts aboard the 1968 Apollo 7 mission, an 11-day spaceflight that beamed live television broadcasts as they orbited Earth, paving the way for the moon landing less than a year later.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Apollo
FILE – Apollo 7 astronaut Walter Cunningham, left, points to pictures of fellow astronaut the late Charles “Pete” Conrad while speaking with Apollo 10 astronaut Dick Gordon, center, and Andy Conrad, the son of Charles Conrad, at the opening of the Rendezvous in Space exhibit at the Museum of Flight in Seattle, Wash., July 22, 2000. (Jay Drowns\/AP, File)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Cunningham, then a civilian, crewed the mission with Navy Capt. Walter M. Schirra and Donn F. Eisele,<\/a> an Air Force major. Cunningham was the lunar module pilot on the space flight, which launched from Cape Kennedy Air Force Station, Florida, on Oct. 11 and splashed down in the Atlantic Ocean south of Bermuda.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

NASA said Cunningham, Eisele and Schirra\u2019 flew a near perfect mission. Their spacecraft performed so well that the agency sent the next crew, Apollo 8, to orbit the moon as a prelude to the Apollo 11 moon landing in July 1969.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said Tuesday that Cunningham was \u201cabove all\u201d an explorer whose work also laid the foundation for the agency\u2019s new Artemis moon program.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Apollo 7 astronauts also won a special Emmy award for their daily television reports from orbit, during which they clowned around, held up humorous signs and educated earthlings about space flight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was NASA\u2019s first crewed space mission since the deaths of the three Apollo 1 astronauts<\/a> in a launch pad fire Jan. 27, 1967.<\/p>\n\n\n\t