NASA astronaut Don Pettit will return to Earth from the International Space Station on Saturday along with his two Russian cosmonaut colleagues.
Pettit, Alexey Ovchinin and Ivan Vagner are expected to land near Dzhezkazgan, Kazakhstan, via parachute at 9:20 p.m. ET Saturday.
The trio will begin the procedure of undocking their Soyuz MS-26 spacecraft from the ISS at 5:57 p.m. ET.
NASA will broadcast the procedure on its website.
With the landing scheduled for 6:20 a.m. local time, it will be Pettit's 70th birthday. He is the oldest active member of NASA's astronaut core.
During a ceremony on Friday, Pettit handed over command of the ISS to Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Takuya Onishi to begin Expedition 73.
Last month, the unmanned Cygnus spacecraft delivered more than 4 tons of cargo and supplies to the ISS.
By the time of landing, the three men will have orbited the Earth 3,520 times during their 220 days in space.
Pettit served as a flight engineer aboard the ISS during Expeditions 71 and 72 and has completed four spaceflights to date, logging a total of 590 days in orbit.
After recovering, the trio will fly by helicopter to Karaganda, Kazakhstan, and then split up: Ovchinin and Wagner will fly to Star City, Russia, and a NASA plane will take Pettit to Houston.
Sourse: www.upi.com
