On April 20, 2025, at 06:20 local time, Dan Pettit, the oldest serving astronaut in U.S. history, touches down in Kazakhstan after an extensive ISS mission.
Oldest Serving U.S. Astronaut Celebrates Milestone Birthday with Earth Return
Oldest Serving U.S. Astronaut Celebrates Milestone Birthday with Earth Return
Dan Pettit makes history on his 70th birthday, landing after 220 days in space.
America's renowned astronaut Dan Pettit has made a triumphant return to Earth, coinciding with his 70th birthday. The Soyuz MS-26 spacecraft, transporting Pettit along with Russian colleagues Alexey Ovchinin and Ivan Vagner, executed a successful parachute-assisted landing in the Kazakhstan steppe at 06:20 local time (01:20 GMT) on Sunday. Over the course of their mission, the crew spent an impressive 220 days aboard the International Space Station (ISS), completing around 3,520 orbits around the Earth, as reported by NASA.
Pettit, who has now accumulated a remarkable total of 590 days spent in space across four missions, celebrated this significant birthday in orbit. Yet, he is not the record holder for the oldest person to venture into space—this title goes to John Glenn, who flew at age 77 on a NASA mission in 1998 before passing away in 2016.
Upon returning to Earth, Pettit and his fellow astronauts will take some time to readjust to the force of gravity. Following their readjustment, Pettit is set to travel to Houston, Texas, while Ovchinin and Vagner will head to Russia's famed space training hub, Zvyozdniy Gorodok (Star City) near Moscow.
Before departing from ISS, the crew formally transferred command of the spacecraft to Japanese astronaut Takuya Onishi. In a related space development, last month marked the return of NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, who spent over nine months aboard the ISS after delays caused by technical issues with their transport vehicle. They had initially set out for an eight-day stay beginning in June 2024, only managing their return on March 18, 2025.
