Veteran American astronaut Don Pettit returned to Earth on his 70th birthday. On Sunday, April 20 at 1:20 AM (UTC), the Soyuz MS-26 spacecraft landed in Kazakhstan, carrying Pettit back from space, according to a report by the BBC.
NASA confirmed that alongside Pettit, Russian cosmonauts Alexey Ovchinin and Ivan Wagner also returned from the mission. The trio had spent 220 days aboard the International Space Station (ISS), orbiting the Earth 3,520 times during their stay.
Before leaving the ISS, Japanese astronaut Takuya Onishi was handed over all responsibilities from the outgoing crew.
Don Pettit was born on April 20, 1955, in Oregon. This was his fourth space mission, bringing his total time spent in space to 590 days.
Upon returning to Earth, Pettit and his colleagues will undergo a re-adaptation process to adjust back to Earth’s gravity. After completing the necessary procedures, Pettit will head to Houston, Texas, while his Russian counterparts will return to their training center in Star City near Moscow.
Last month, NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Sunita Williams made headlines when they returned from space after more than nine months. Their mission was initially scheduled for only eight days, but due to technical issues, they remained in orbit since June last year and returned on March 18.
It’s worth noting that Don Pettit is not the oldest person to travel to space. That title still belongs to John Glenn, who flew on a NASA mission in 1998 at the age of 77. Glenn, the oldest person to go to space, passed away in 2016.