April 23, 2025 | 12:10 pm
TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Don Pettit, NASA's oldest active astronaut, has returned to Earth, arriving in Houston on Sunday, April 20, 2025. Uniquely, Pettit landed on his 70th birthday.
His return marked the end of a seven-month mission aboard the International Space Station (ISS) alongside two Russian cosmonauts, Aleksey Ovchinin and Ivan Vagner. The trio landed in the Kazakh steppes aboard the Soyuz MS-26 capsule at 9:20 p.m. EDT or 6:20 a.m. local time.
“Spanning 220 days in space, Pettit and his crewmates orbited the Earth 3,520 times, completing a journey of 93.3 million miles,” NASA said in an official statement quoted on Wednesday, April 23, 2025. “Pettit, Ovchinin, and Vagner launched and docked to the orbiting laboratory on Sept. 11, 2024.”
After landing, the astronaut team was flown by helicopter to Karaganda, Kazakhstan. From there, Pettit boarded a NASA aircraft bound for Houston, while Ovchinin and Vagner returned to their training base in Star City, Russia.
In a statement on X, NASA reported that Pettit is in good condition and within the expected health range after returning to Earth. NASA also cited Pettit’s remarks in an interview with an Oregon TV station on April 16.
The astronaut from Silverton, Oregon, said it takes him 24 hours to feel human again after landing on Earth. “This is a physiological thing. It affects different people different ways. Some people can go out and eat pizza and dance,” he said, as quoted by Space.com.
Despite being known for having a difficult recovery after landing, Pettit now appears healthy and in good spirits. NASA shared a photo of him smiling and waving as he stepped off the plane upon arrival in Houston.
Across his four space missions, Pettit has spent 590 days off Earth. He is also widely known among space enthusiasts for his orbital photography, which he frequently shares on social media.
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