Former NASA astronaut Bill Anders, who was the first to photograph the Earth in color from space while serving as the lunar module pilot for NASA’s Apollo 8 mission, died June 7 in a plane crash in the waters off the San Juan Islands near Seattle.

Anders, 90, was alone aboard the Beechcraft T-34 Mentor he was piloting.

Educated at the U.S. Naval Academy and Air Force Institute of Technology, Anders was a nuclear engineer and Air Force fighter pilot when he was selected by NASA for astronaut training in 1964.

He served as the pilot aboard the three-man December 1968 Apollo 8 mission, the first to orbit the Moon with astronauts and a precursor to Apollo 11, which delivered the first human explorers to the surface of the Moon in July 1969.

While orbiting the Moon 10 times over their six-day mission, Apollo 8 commander Frank Borman, command module pilot James Lovell and Anders became the first humans to observe the far side of the Moon and witness the Earth rise from its horizon.

The history-making mission has remained etched in the memory of many thanks to Anders’ photography of the Earth as it rose from behind the Moon, the first to display the Earth in color suspended against the vast darkness of space, an iconic moment since memorialized as “Earthrise.”

“We came all this way to explore the Moon, and the most important thing is that we discovered the Earth,” Anders remarked at the end of the mission.

“That is what Bill embodied, the notion that we go to space to learn the secrets of the universe, yet in the process learn about something else: ourselves. He embodied the lessons and the purpose of exploration,” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson noted in a June 8 statement paying tribute to Anders.

“When America returns astronauts to the Moon under the Artemis campaign, and ultimately ventures onward to Mars, we will carry the memory and legacy of Bill with us,” Nelson said.

Anders served as a backup for NASA’s Gemini 8 prior to his only spaceflight and later as an Apollo 11 backup.

He later served as executive secretary of the National Aeronautics and Space Council, the Atomic Energy Commission and become the first to chair the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Anders retired from the federal government after 26 years of service to serve in executive positions at General Electric, Textron and General Dynamics, according to his NASA biography. He retired in 1994.