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While most people mark their 70th birthday with cake and a quiet family gathering, NASA’s oldest serving astronaut, Don Pettit, celebrated his milestone in a far more extraordinary way—returning to Earth in a spacecraft after a seven-month mission aboard the International Space Station (ISS), The Guardian reported on Sunday.
Pettit, along with Russian cosmonauts Alexei Ovchinin and Ivan Vagner, landed safely in the early hours of Sunday in Kazakhstan aboard a Soyuz MS-26 capsule, the report said, adding that the spacecraft touched down near the town of Zhezkazgan at 6:20 a.m. local time (0120 GMT), ending a 220-day mission in orbit.
“Today at 0420 Moscow time (0120 GMT), the Soyuz MS-26 landing craft with Alexei Ovchinin, Ivan Vagner and Donald (Don) Pettit aboard landed near the Kazakh town of Zhezkazgan,” Russia’s space agency Roscosmos confirmed, according to The Guardian.
Over the course of their mission, the trio orbited Earth 3,520 times, covering 93.3 million miles, the report further said, adding that it marked Pettit’s fourth spaceflight and brought his total time in space to over 18 months during a 29-year career with NASA.
NASA’s official images of the landing showed the capsule descending under parachute as the sun rose in the distance. After landing, the astronauts were seen giving thumbs-up gestures as they were assisted from the capsule into a medical tent by recovery crews.
In a statement, NASA said Pettit was “doing well and in the range of what is expected for him following return to Earth.” According to the report, the veteran astronaut was expected to fly to Karaganda before heading to NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Texas.
While on board the ISS, Pettit and his crewmates reportedly worked on a wide range of scientific experiments, including water sanitization technology, plant growth under various conditions and fire behaviour in microgravity, according to NASA.
Their return came just short of the nine-month stay by NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, whose mission was unexpectedly extended after their spacecraft encountered technical issues and was deemed unfit for return.
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