For most, a 70th birthday means cake, candles, and perhaps a quiet family gathering. But for NASA’s Don Pettit, turning 70 meant something far more extraordinary re-entering Earth’s atmosphere aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft after a seven-month mission aboard the International Space Station (ISS).
Pettit, NASA’s oldest active astronaut, marked his milestone birthday on Sunday with a dramatic return to Earth, landing in Kazakhstan alongside Russian cosmonauts Alexei Ovchinin and Ivan Vagner. The trio’s Soyuz MS-26 capsule touched down near the remote Kazakh town of Zhezkazgan at 0420 Moscow time (0120 GMT), according to Russia’s space agency Roscosmos.
Over the course of 220 days in space, the crew orbited Earth 3,520 times, traveling a staggering 93.3 million miles. Pettit, a seasoned space traveler, completed his fourth spaceflight, bringing his total time in orbit to more than 18 months during his distinguished 29-year NASA career.
NASA released images of the landing that showed the capsule parachuting to the surface at sunrise, followed by rescue teams helping the astronauts from the spacecraft and into a nearby medical tent. Pettit, though visibly exhausted, gave a thumbs-up and was reported to be in good condition, within expected parameters for someone returning from such an extended mission.
The crew’s work aboard the ISS focused on crucial research, including advancements in water sanitization technology, studies on plant growth in space, and understanding fire behavior in microgravity important areas for long-term human space exploration.
Their return was relatively uneventful compared to fellow NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, who recently spent an unexpected nine months aboard the ISS due to technical issues with their return spacecraft.
Amid heightened tensions between the United States and Russia over the Ukraine conflict, space exploration remains one of the few areas of continued cooperation. Pettit’s mission underscores that shared scientific goals can still unite nations even at the edge of space.
Following their landing, the crew was flown to Karaganda, Kazakhstan, before Pettit boarded a NASA plane to the Johnson Space Center in Houston, where his recovery and post-mission evaluations will continue.
