William Anders, NASA Astronaut Who Captured Iconic 'Earthrise' Photograph, Dies at 90

, the Apollo 8 astronaut who captured the iconic “Earthrise” photograph in December 1968, has died at the age of 90. The small, vintage plane he was piloting alone—a Beechcraft T-34 Mentor—crashed into the water near Roche Harbor, Washington, on June 7, . “The family is devastated,” his son, retired Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Greg Anders, tells the ’ Gene Johnson and Audrey McAvoy.

“He was a great pilot, and we will miss him terribly.” “He traveled to the threshold of the moon and helped all of us see something else: ourselves,” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson . “He embodied the lessons and the purpose of exploration.



” Born in 1933 in Hong Kong, Anders graduated from the United States Naval Academy in 1955 and was subsequently commissioned to the U.S. Air Force, where he earned his pilot’s wings the following year, ’s Joe Sutton and Ashley R.

Williams report. In the skies over California and Iceland, he served as an , and he later nuclear reactor shielding and radiation effects programs at New Mexico’s Air Force Weapons Laboratory. In 1963, Anders was chosen to be a member of NASA’s third group of astronauts.

With Neil Armstrong, he was part of the Gemini 11 backup crew in 1966. Two years later, Anders served as the lunar module pilot for the Apollo 8 mission, alongside command module pilot Jim Lovell and mission commander Frank Borman. The trio launched to space on the first crewed flight of the .

“The Apollo 8 crew took on [one] of the h.