Buzz Aldrin, one of the first astronauts to walk on the moon, has announced the death of his wife Dr Anca Aldrin, just two years after the couple married.

The 95-year-old, who made history alongside Neil Armstrong on July 20, 1969, shared the news in a statement posted to Facebook by the Faur and Aldrin families on Thursday. 

Dr Aldrin, 66, passed away “peacefully … with her husband and her son, Vlad Ghenciu by her side.”

“I am so fortunate to have found and married the love of my life,” Aldrin said. 

“She brought joy to everything we did together. I will miss her dearly.”

Her cause of death has not yet been made public.

The couple married on his 93rd birthday in January 2023, holding what Aldrin described as an intimate ceremony at a park near their home.

“It was a beautiful day,” he told People at the time. 

“We had decided on a private ceremony, as suitably intimate, just us and the stars in the sky.”

During the same interview, Aldrin praised his wife – previously known as Dr Anca Faur – as someone with “the whole Wizard of Oz package” possessing “brains, heart [and] courage”.

“There is something special about her and the way we connect so well,” he said, adding he had “never been happier in my life” and was “lucky beyond words” to be with her.

“She is the love of my life, we do everything together, from eating meals, planning projects and watching the world go by, to meeting with our two families and celebrating.”

Their marriage was Aldrin’s fourth.

He married his first wife, Joan Archer, in 1954, and they had three children – sons James and Andrew, and daughter Janice – before divorcing in 1974. 

The following year, he wed Beverly Van Zile. That marriage ended in 1978. In 1988, he married Lois Driggs Cannon, and they remained together for 24 years until their divorce in 2012.

Aldrin was single until he began a relationship with Dr Faur in May 2018 after they met at a work event.

“We were joined in holy matrimony in a small private ceremony in Los Angeles & are as excited as eloping teenagers,” he said at the time of their wedding.

A veteran of three spacewalks, Aldrin is best known for serving as the lunar module pilot on Apollo 11 – the first manned mission to land on the moon. 

He followed Armstrong onto the lunar surface, becoming the second person in history to walk on the moon. He spent a total of 12 days in space before retiring from NASA in 1971.

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