His mission, following the deaths of three astronauts in a launchpad fire, renewed the American space program and helped lead the way to the moon landing.
. A family spokesman, Jeff Carr, said Mr. Cunningham had complications from a recent fall.
NASA conducted a series of unmanned missions to perfect the safety of its craft before launching Apollo 7 on Oct. 11, 1968. With command pilot Walter M. Schirra Jr. and navigator Donn F. Eisele, Mr. Cunningham spent 11 days in space, orbiting the earth 163 times before safely splashing down in the Atlantic Ocean.
The extraordinary flight was marred by the most ordinary of inconveniences — the common cold — which first afflicted Schirra and then Eisele. Mr. Cunningham confessed to feeling a “little blah” during his time in space. . “I, frankly, have never felt like I had any kind of a problem with the ground, with going over the onboard tapes and air-to-ground and what have you.”Neither Mr. Cunningham nor Schirra nor Eisele would fly in future space flights, a source of sadness for Mr. Cunningham.. “Today, I take great satisfaction in the fact that Apollo 7 was a critical mission to play a central role in getting others to the moon.
Mr. Cunningham studied physics at the University of California at Los Angeles, where he received a bachelor’s degree in 1960 and a master’s degree the following year. He worked at the Rand Corp. on classified defense projects while pursuing a doctoral degree, which he completed except for his dissertation.
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