Story highlights "It's a heck of a big leap for me," the astronaut said of his landmark mission, he wrote

He also served on the Apollo 14 support crew and helped launch the Hubble telescope

(CNN) Former astronaut Bruce McCandless II, famously captured in a 1984 photo documenting the first untethered flight in space, has died, NASA said. He was 80.

McCandless flew alongside the space shuttle Challenger in a jetpack-style craft called a Manned Maneuvering Unit, using his hands to control his movement a few meters away from the shuttle. It was the first-ever spacewalk that didn't employ "restrictive tethers and umbilicals," NASA said

Crew members used a 70 mm camera to shoot the photo through windows on the shuttle's flight deck.

"My wife (Bernice) was at mission control, and there was quite a bit of apprehension," he wrote in 2015 . "I wanted to say something similar to Neil (Armstrong) when he landed on the moon, so I said, 'It may have been a small step for Neil, but it's a heck of a big leap for me.' That loosened the tension a bit."

McCandless died Thursday, and NASA announced the death a day later. Acting NASA Administrator Robert Lightfoot said in a statement, "Our thoughts and prayers go out to Bruce's family."

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