After just over seven months in space, NASA’s oldest serving astronaut, Don Pettit, is returning to Earth.
Pettit will travel home alongside Russian cosmonauts Alexey Ovchinin and Ivan Vagner aboard a Soyuz MS-26 spacecraft after departing the International Space Station (ISS) on Saturday, April 19.
“Pettit, Ovchinin, and Vagner will undock from the orbiting laboratory’s Rassvet module at 5:57 p.m. ET, heading for a parachute-assisted landing at 9:20 p.m. (6:20 a.m. Kazakhstan time, Sunday, April 20) on the steppe of Kazakhstan, southeast of the town of Dzhezkazgan,” NASA said in a post on its website, adding: “Landing will occur on Pettit’s 70th birthday.”
During their 220 days in space, Pettit, Ovchinin, and Vagner will have orbited the Earth 3,520 times, traveling a colossal 93.3 million miles.
It’ll be quite a ride home for Pettit, who has been to space four times since his first orbital adventure in 2002. During its descent into Earth’s atmosphere, the Russian Soyuz spacecraft will reach speeds of up to 17,400 mph (28,000 kph) before slowing dramatically for a parachute-assisted landing. The ride will be bumpy, too, with extreme G-forces and some strong jolts along the way. And then, at the end, there’ll be the shock of the hard touchdown as the spacecraft comes to a sudden halt.
After returning to Earth, the trio will fly on a helicopter from the landing site to the recovery staging city of Karaganda, also in Kazakhstan. Pettit will then board a NASA plane and fly to Houston, while Ovchinin and Vagner will depart for a training base in Star City, Russia.
The trio’s departure from the ISS will be livestreamed on NASA’s website. The final moments of the descent and landing in Kazakhstan will also be broadcast about three-and-a-half hours later.
Pettit has been dazzling fans back on terra firma with his amazing photography during his seven-month mission, with standout work including images of star trails, aurora, a rocket launch, a returning spacecraft, places on Earth, and plenty more besides.