NASA’s oldest active astronaut celebrated his 70th birthday while descending to Earth, wrapping up a seven-month mission aboard the International Space Station (ISS).
Don Pettit, along with Russian cosmonauts Alexei Ovchinin and Ivan Vagner, returned aboard the Soyuz MS-26 capsule, which safely landed near Zhezkazgan, Kazakhstan, on Sunday. Russia’s space agency Roscosmos confirmed the landing at 0420 Moscow time (0120 GMT).
During their 220-day mission, the crew completed 3,520 Earth orbits, covering approximately 93.3 million miles. Pettit, originally from Oregon, has now accumulated over 18 months in space across four missions during his 29-year NASA career. Although he holds the title of NASA’s oldest currently serving astronaut, the record for the oldest person in orbit still belongs to John Glenn, who flew at age 77 in 1998.
The trio’s spacecraft undocked from the ISS just over three hours before touchdown in the remote Kazakh steppe.
