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Astronaut Edgar Mitchell, sixth man to walk on moon, dies at 85

Astronaut Edgar Mitchell, the sixth man to walk on the moon as module pilot on the record-setting Apollo 14 mission in 1971, has died at the age of 85, the U.S. space agency said on Friday.

Mitchell died in West Palm Beach, Florida, on Thursday, on the eve of the 45th anniversary of the lunar landing, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration said. The Palm Beach Post reported that he died at a hospice center after a brief illness.

On his only space flight, Mitchell joined Apollo 14 commander Alan Shephard, Jr., the first American in space, in the lunar module Antares when it landed on Feb. 5, 1971.

Their mission was to deploy scientific instruments and perform a communications test, as well as photograph the lunar surface and any deep space phenomena, the space agency said.

Mitchell and Shephard set mission records for time of the longest distance traversed on the lunar surface, the largest payload returned from the moon, and the longest lunar stay time, at 33 hours. They were also the first to transmit color TV from the moon. Mitchell helped collect 94 pounds (42.6 kg) of lunar rock and soil samples. He was the sixth of 12 men to walk on the moon.