NASA's oldest serving astronaut has marked his momentous birthday by hurtling towards the Earth in a spacecraft, concluding a seven-month mission aboard the International Space Station (ISS).
A Soyuz capsule carrying US citizen Don Pettit and two Russian cosmonauts landed in Kazakhstan on Sunday, the day of Mr Pettit's milestone 70th birthday.
Confirming the successful landing, Russia's space agency Roscosmos said: 'Today at 0420 Moscow time (0120 GMT), the Soyuz MS-26 landing craft with Alexei Ovchinin, Ivan Vagner and Donald (Don) Pettit aboard landed near the Kazakh town of Zhezkazgan'.
Spending 220 days in space, Pettit and his crewmates, Mr Ovchinin and Mr Vagner, orbited the Earth 3,520 times and completed a journey of 93.3 million miles over the course of their mission.
Over the course of his 29-year career, Mr Pettit, born in Oregan, has logged more than 18 months in orbit, with the latest spaceflight his fourth.
He is not, however, the oldest person to have ever flown in orbit, with John Glennm who died in 2016, flying on a NASA mission in 1998 at the age of 77.
The trio touched down in a remote area southeast of Kazakhstan after undocking from the space station just over three hours earlier.
US citizen Don Pettit (pictured) marked his 70th birthday by hurtling towards the Earth in a spacecraft, concluding a seven-month mission aboard the International Space Station (ISS)
Spending 220 days in space, Pettit and his crewmates, Mr Ovchinin and Mr Vagner, orbited the Earth 3,520 times and completed a journey of 93.3 million miles over the course of their mission (Pictured: Alexei Ovchinin, one of the Russian astronauts onboard)
The trio touched down in a remote area southeast of Kazakhstan after undocking from the space station just over three hours earlier
Picturesque images of the landing showed the small capsule parachuting down to Earth with the sunrise as a backdrop.
The astronauts gave thumbs-up gestures as rescuers carried them from the spacecraft to an inflatable medical tent.
In a statement, NASA confirmed that Mr Pettit was 'doing well and in the range of what is expected for him following return to Earth'.
Following the landing, he was then set to fly to the Kazakh city of Karaganda before boarding a NASA plane to the agency's Johnson Space Center in Texas.
During their time on the ISS, the astronauts conducted research into areas such as water sanitisation technology, plant growth in various conditions and fire behavior in microgravity, NASA said.
The trio's seven-month trip was just short of the nine months that NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore, 62, and Suni Williams, 59, unexpectedly spent stuck on the orbital lab after the spacecraft they were testing suffered technical issues and was deemed unfit to fly them back to Earth.
Williams and Wilmore returned to Earth on March 19 aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule which splashed down off the coast of Florida.
In a statement, NASA confirmed that Mr Pettit was 'doing well and in the range of what is expected for him following return to Earth' (Pictured: Ivan Vagner)
Following the landing, Mr Pettit was then set to fly to the Kazakh city of Karaganda before boarding a NASA plane to the agency's Johnson Space Center in Texas (Pictured: Mr Vagner)
During their time on the ISS , the astronauts conducted research into areas such as water sanitisation technology, plant growth in various conditions and fire behavior in microgravity, NASA said
Picturesque images of the landing showed the small capsule parachuting down to Earth with the sunrise as a backdrop
The trio's seven-month trip was just short of the nine months that NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore, 62, and Suni Williams, 59, (both pictured), unexpectedly spent stuck on the orbital lab after the spacecraft they were testing suffered technical issues
The pair had left Earth in June last year, planning to undertake an eight-day test flight of the new Boeing Starliner capsule.
However, after the Starliner capsule developed numerous technical issues during the flight, the astronauts were forced to wait until the next crew rotation to return to Earth.
In total, they spent 286 days in space - 278 days more than they had initially planned, before finally returning to Earth on March 18.
Concerns were initially raised for their health, as, during time in microgravity, astronauts face a serious risk of muscle atrophy and bone loss which can then make walking on Earth more difficult.
However, the pair now say they have made an almost inconceivably rapid recovery thanks to NASA's scientific knowledge.
Space is one of the final areas of US-Russia cooperation amid an almost complete breakdown in relations between Moscow and Washington over the ongoing Ukraine conflict which began in February 2022.
The US, alongside other Western nations, have ceased other partnerships with Roscosmos as part of a number of sanctions placed upon Russia over the course of the war.
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