STORY: The last astronaut to fly into space aboard Apollo 7 died Thursday at the age of 90. This was announced by the US space agency NASA. Walter Cunningham was a member of the first manned US space mission in October 1968. The qualified physicist had been a fighter pilot in the Korean War before joining NASA. For the Apollo 7 mission, Cunningham was initially planned as a backup team with his colleagues Walter Schirra and Donn Eisele. When the first crew died on the Apollo 1 mission, Cunningham and his colleagues followed suit. They were in space for a total of 10 days before their space capsule landed in the Caribbean as scheduled.