America's oldest serving astronaut, Don Pettit, has made a remarkable return to Earth on his 70th birthday. The Soyuz MS-26 space capsule, carrying Pettit and his Russian crewmates, Alexey Ovchinin and Ivan Vagner, successfully landed via parachute in Kazakhstan’s expansive steppe at 06:20 local time (01:20 GMT) on Sunday.
The crew spent an impressive 220 days aboard the International Space Station (ISS), during which they completed 3,520 orbits around the Earth, according to the U.S. space agency NASA. This mission marks Pettit’s fourth trip to space, contributing to his total of 590 days spent in orbit. However, he is not the record holder for the oldest individual in space; that title is held by John Glenn, who at 77 flew on a NASA mission in 1998 and passed away in 2016.
Following their landing, Pettit and his comrades will take some time to readjust to Earth's gravity. Post-adjustment, Pettit will be transported to Houston, Texas, while Ovchinin and Vagner will head towards Russia’s primary space training facility, Zvyozdniy Gorodok (Star City), situated near Moscow. Before leaving the ISS, the crew passed command of the space station to Japanese astronaut Takuya Onishi.
In a recent development, two NASA astronauts, Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, recently concluded their mission, returning to Earth after an extended stay of over nine months aboard the ISS instead of the planned eight days, following technical difficulties with their spacecraft.
