NASA's Don Pettit, two cosmonaut crewmates, wrap up seven-month space station visit
CBSN
On the eve of his 70th birthday, Don Pettit, NASA's oldest active-duty astronaut, and two cosmonaut crewmates packed up for a fiery plunge back to Earth to close out a 220-day expedition to the International Space Station.
Pettit, Soyuz MS-26/72S commander Alexey Ovchinin and flight engineer Ivan Vagner planned to undock from the space station at 5:57 p.m. EDT Saturday, setting up a landing on the steppe of Kazakhstan near the town of Dzhezkazgan three-and-half hours later at 9:20 p.m. (6:20 a.m. Sunday — Pettit's birthday — local time).
Russian recovery crews and NASA personnel were deployed nearby to help the returning crew out of the Soyuz descent module with initial medical checks and satellite phone calls to family and friends as they begin their re-adjustment to gravity after seven months in weightlessness.
