NASA astronaut Don Pettit landed on Earth April 20, 2025, exactly on his 70th birthday. Pettit, America’s oldest active astronaut, touched down in Kazakhstan with Russian cosmonauts Alexey Ovchinin and Ivan Vagner after spending 220 days on the International Space Station (ISS). The Soyuz MS-26 spacecraft carrying the three crew members made a parachute-assisted landing on Kazakhstan’s steppe at 6:20 AM local time (1:20 AM GMT). During their mission that began September 11, 2024, they orbited Earth 3,520 times and traveled 93.3 million miles. “Its deorbiting and descent to Earth were normal,” Russia’s Roscosmos space agency confirmed. This was Pettit’s … Continue reading Astronaut Don Pettit Returns After 590 Days in Space: Post-Landing Health Check