NASA’s Oldest Active Astronaut Celebrates 70th Birthday with Safe Landing Alongside Crewmates
Donald Pettit, NASA’s oldest active astronaut, celebrated his 70th birthday in the most extraordinary way imaginable—by returning to Earth after a seven-month mission aboard the International Space Station (ISS). Pettit touched down early Saturday morning alongside Russian cosmonauts Aleksey Ovchinin and Ivan Vagner, marking the end of their journey aboard Soyuz MS-26.
The spacecraft launched on September 11, 2024, and landed at 6:20 AM local time on April 20, 2025, in the steppes of Kazakhstan. With this mission, Pettit made history not only for his age but also for his contributions to science and space exploration.
A Legacy Written in the Stars
According to Space.com, this marked the fourth spaceflight for both Pettit and Ovchinin, and the second for Vagner. Pettit has now logged a total of 590 days in space, Ovchinin 595 days, and Vagner 416 days. Over the course of their latest mission, the trio orbited Earth 3,520 times, covering roughly 93.3 million miles.
NASA astronaut and Expedition 73 flight engineer Nichole Ayers took to X to say farewell:
“Goodbye today to Donald Pettit. It’s a bittersweet moment. He’s inspired so many during his time aboard.”
The Return Journey
Their journey home began at 5:57 PM EDT on Saturday, when Soyuz MS-26 undocked from the ISS. After a deorbit burn lasting approximately two and a half hours, the capsule safely descended, concluding a mission dedicated to microgravity research in biology, physics, and materials science.
The remaining ISS crew—Anne McClain, Nichole Ayers, Jonny Kim, JAXA astronaut and Expedition 73 Commander Takuya Onishi, and Russian cosmonauts Sergey Ryzhikov and Alexey Zubritsky—remain aboard the station.
Pettit’s Remarkable Career
Renowned for his inventive spirit and scientific curiosity, Donald Pettit has become a legend in the space community. With 13 hours of spacewalks to his name, he’s also known for innovations like the zero-gravity coffee cup (aka the “g-cup”) and for stunning polarized photos of Earth taken from space.
During this latest expedition, he supported multiple missions including the departure of SpaceX's Crew-9 and Crew-10, and the Cygnus cargo ship. He previously served as a flight engineer on Expedition 30/31 in 2012.
From his inventive experiments to his poetic views of Earth from orbit, Pettit continues to inspire a new generation of space explorers—proving that age is no barrier when it comes to exploring the final frontier.
