Sun Apr 20 11:30:20 UTC 2025: ## Veteran Astronaut Celebrates 70th Birthday Landing Back on Earth After Seven-Month Space Mission
**Zhezkazgan, Kazakhstan –** NASA astronaut Don Pettit, the agency’s oldest active astronaut, celebrated his 70th birthday in a rather unique way: landing back on Earth after a seven-month mission aboard the International Space Station (ISS). Pettit, along with two Russian cosmonauts, Alexei Ovchinin and Ivan Vagner, returned to Earth on April 20th, 2025, touching down in a remote area of Kazakhstan in a Soyuz MS-26 capsule.
The trio spent 220 days in orbit, completing 3,520 orbits of Earth and traveling 93.3 million miles. Their mission included research on water sanitization, plant growth in microgravity, and fire behavior in space. This was Pettit’s fourth spaceflight, bringing his total time in orbit to over 18 months.
NASA reported that Pettit was “doing well” following the landing, despite appearing slightly weary after the journey. He is scheduled to travel to the Johnson Space Center in Texas after a brief stop in Karaganda, Kazakhstan.
The mission marks a continued point of cooperation between NASA and Roscosmos amidst strained US-Russia relations. The successful landing underscores the ongoing collaboration in space exploration despite geopolitical tensions.
First Piper 