Brief by Shorts91NewsDesk / 12:27pm on 20 Apr 2025,Sunday Science
NASA astronaut Don Pettit, aged 70, safely returned to Earth on April 20, 2025, coinciding with his birthday, after a 220-day mission aboard the International Space Station. Accompanied by Russian cosmonauts Alexey Ovchinin and Ivan Vagner, their Soyuz capsule landed near Zhezkazgan, Kazakhstan, at 6:20 a.m. local time. The trio completed 3,520 Earth orbits during their mission. Post-landing, standard medical evaluations were conducted. Pettit is set to return to NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, while Ovchinin and Vagner will proceed to Russia’s Star City training base. Prior to departure, Ovchinin transferred ISS command to Japanese astronaut Takuya Onishi. (PC: NASA/Bill Ingalls via Reuters & NASA)
