Edgar Mitchell, sixth man on the Moon, passes away.

 US astronaut Edgar Mitchell, who was the sixth man to walk on the Moon, passed away at a hospice in West Palm Beach, Florida, one day before the 45th anniversary of his Moon landing, He was 85. He was the part of  Apollo 14 mission in 1971 and had spent more than nine hours on the Moon conducting experiments.

About Edgar Mitchell 

Mitchell was born on September 17, 1930, in Hereford, Texas, was an American naval officer and aviator, test pilot, aeronautical engineer and NASA astronaut. He joined NASA as an astronaut in 1966. 

Mitchell was designated as backup Lunar Module Pilot for Apollo 10 and had served as Lunar Module Pilot on Apollo 14. Mitchell's mission to the Moon was the fourth in the US Apollo series, and first after the ill-fated Apollo 13 which aborted its attempt to land after an oxygen tank explosion.

Mitchell and his crewmate, landed safely to the lunar surface on Fra Mauro Highlands, which was the target of the failed Apollo 13 mission. He stayed on the surface of moon 33 hours and  collected 45kg (94lb) of Moonrock for examination back on earth and completed the longest moonwalk in history.

Mitchell left Nasa in 1972 and set up the Institute of Noetic Sciences, which aimed to support "individual and collective transformation through consciousness research".