Soyuz capsule returns to Earth, bringing home 2 Russians, 1 American
Oldest active astronaut returns to Earth on 70th birthday
Don Pettit, NASA’s oldest active astronaut, returned to Earth on his 70th birthday, April 20, after spending seven months in space, according to NASA. (NASA via Storyful)
MOSCOW - A Soyuz capsule that carried two Russians and one American from the International Space Station landed Sunday in Kazakhstan, ending their seven-month research assignment.
According to Russian space agency Roscosmos, the capsule carrying Roscosmos cosmonauts Alexey Ovchinin and Ivan Vagner and astronaut Don Pettit of U.S. space agency NASA landed on the Kazakh steppe near the city of Zhezkazgan at 6:20 a.m. Roscosmos said the parachute-assisted landing was a trouble-free descent.
The trio returned after spending 220 days in space and orbiting the Earth 3,520 times, NASA said in a statement. The agency noted that, coincidentally, Pettit celebrated his 70th birthday on Sunday.
In this handout photo provided by NASA, Roscosmos cosmonaut Ivan Vagner is seen outside the Soyuz MS-26 spacecraft after he landed with NASA astronaut Don Pettit and Roscosmos cosmonaut Alexey Ovchinin in a remote area on April 20, 2025 near Zhezkazg
NASA said it was following its routine postlanding medical checks, and that the crew will return to the recovery staging area in Karaganda, Kazakhstan. Pettit will then board a NASA plane bound for the agency’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, while Roscosmos said Ovchinin and Vagner will depart for a training base in Star City, Russia.
On Friday, Ovchinin handed over command of the ISS to Japanese astronaut Takuya Onishi in a change of command ceremony.
The Source: The Associated Press contributed to this report. The information in this story comes primarily from official statements by the Russian space agency Roscosmos and the U.S. space agency NASA. This story was reported from Los Angeles.