James McDivitt, the commander of the Apollo 9 mission which tested the technology that enabled later missions to land on the moon and which took the entire Apollo mission system into space for the first time, died Thursday in Tuscon, Arizona, NBC News reports. He was 93.
McDivitt’s Apollo 9 mission took both the command and the landing modules into space for the first time. During the mission, the crew tested using the landing module’s rockets to maneuver the ship, a capability that would become critical to saving the astronauts in Apollo 13.
McDivitt also commanded the Gemini 4 mission, during which Ed White became the first American to perform a space walk. Although he was offered a seat on a mission to the moon in later Apollo trips, McDivitt chose to stay on Earth and work as the program manager on five other missions.