Veteran NASA astronaut Don Pettit celebrated his 70th birthday by returning to Earth after seven months on the International Space Station, where he completed Expeditions 71 and 72.
Pettit is the oldest active U.S. astronaut, having completed four space flights and spent about 590 days in orbit during his career. He is the second-oldest American astronaut in space, behind John Glenn's famous 1998 mission, when he was 77.
“The feeling of being home is proportional to how far you've traveled. When you go out for dinner, it feels like home when you pull up to your door,” Pettit wrote in a social media post before his return.
“When our capsule hits these desert plains, I'll be on the opposite side of the planet, almost 12,000 miles from home. But I'll be home. I can imagine someday in the future, a crew coming back from Mars and going into low Earth orbit and seeing that blue diamond swirling below and saying, 'I'm home.'”
Pettit returned to Earth Saturday night aboard the Russian Soyuz MS-26 spacecraft, which landed in a remote area near Zhezkazgan, Kazakhstan, along with Roscosmos cosmonauts Alexey Ovchinin and Ivan Vagner. The crew left the space station around 5:57 p.m. ET Saturday and landed around 6:20 a.m. Kazakhstan time Sunday.
A NASA press release on Saturday said the three crew members would be flown by helicopter from the landing site to Karaganda, Kazakhstan, after landing. Pettit would then return home to Houston on a NASA plane.
Pettit first flew into space as a science officer during Expedition 6, launching aboard the shuttle Endeavour in November 2002 and returning in May 2003 on a Russian Soyuz after the Columbia disaster grounded shuttle flights.
The astronaut visited the ISS again for 15 days in 2008 to deliver equipment and supplies to allow more crews to remain on the space station. He was then on board the ISS again in 2012, when he took part in the first capture and docking of a commercial SpaceX Dragon spacecraft to the ISS.
During his most recent visit, Pettit conducted research to expand the capabilities of orbital metal 3D printing and advance water disinfection technologies, according to a NASA press release. He also studied plant growth in various water conditions and investigated the behavior of fire in microgravity.
In addition to his scientific work, the astronaut has become known to the general public for his unique astrophotography, creating artistic images of the Earth as seen from space.
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