What milestone did NASA astronaut Don Pettit reach while returning from space?
Most people celebrate their 70th birthday with cake and family. Don Pettit, NASA’s oldest active astronaut, spent his doing something very different: plummeting back to Earth in a Soyuz capsule after a seven-month mission aboard the ISS.
Pettit, along with Russian cosmonauts Alexei Ovchinin and Ivan Vagner, landed in Kazakhstan on Sunday after orbiting Earth 3,520 times and traveling over 93 million miles.
The capsule touched down at sunrise in the Kazakh steppe. NASA confirmed all three astronauts were in good condition, though Pettit, after 220 days in microgravity, looked understandably exhausted.
This was Pettit’s fourth spaceflight, capping off an orbital career spanning nearly three decades and 18 months in space.
During the mission, the crew researched water purification, plant growth, and fire behavior in microgravity — experiments crucial for long-term deep-space travel.
In a world of fractured diplomacy, especially between the U.S. and Russia, space remains one of the last places where cooperation still floats.
