Buzz Aldrin has announced the death of his wife, Dr Anca Faur, who died on the night of 28 October 2025 aged 66, a little over two years after the couple married on the former astronaut’s 93rd birthday. In a family statement shared on Facebook and reported by US outlets, Faur was said to have passed away peacefully “with her husband and her son, Vlad Ghenciu by her side”. Aldrin, now 95, paid tribute in the same announcement, saying: “I am so fortunate to have found and married the love of my life… She brought joy to everything we did together. I will miss her dearly.”
News of Faur’s death was made public on 29 October, with the family’s statement circulated widely and carried verbatim in People magazine and other outlets. The brief announcement did not initially specify a cause of death. A subsequent report, citing a named family friend, said Faur had “valiantly” fought a rare and aggressive form of cancer in recent months, while remaining optimistic, and described the marriage as deeply devoted. Those details, which were shared to provide context for the family’s request for privacy, have not been independently expanded upon by the Aldrin or Faur families.
Faur, a chemical engineer by training, had a long career at the intersection of science and sustainable technologies. Born in Romania, she studied organic chemistry technology at Politehnica University Timișoara before moving to the United States, where she completed a PhD in chemical engineering at the University of Pittsburgh in the mid-1990s. Professionally, she spent nearly two decades with Johnson Matthey, worked as treasurer of the California Hydrogen Business Council between 2014 and 2020, and more recently served as executive vice-president of Buzz Aldrin Ventures LLC, supporting Aldrin’s speaking, advocacy and commercial work connected to space exploration. Obituaries published by US media cited those roles from her public profiles and prior interviews.
She met Aldrin at a work event in December 2017 and the pair began dating in May 2018, according to past interviews given to People. They married on 20 January 2023 in a small private ceremony near their home, a date Aldrin noted at the time as both his 93rd birthday and the start of a new chapter he described as his happiest. In remarks revisited by media after her death, Aldrin had said Faur possessed “the whole Wizard of Oz package” — “brains, heart [and] courage” — and often emphasised the ease and companionship they shared in later life.