Soyuz spacecraft with two Russian cosmonauts and the American on board landed on Sunday (20) in Kazakhstan, Don Petit’s birthday
A discreet family celebration can be the way many older people turn 70. But the oldest astronaut active at, Don Pettit, became septuagenary while traveling back to Earth to complete a seven-month mission aboard the International Space Station (ISS). A Soyuz spacecraft with two Russian cosmonauts and the American on board landed on Sunday (20) in Kazakhstan, Petit’s birthday. “Today, at 4:20 am, Moscow time (10:20 pm Brasilia, Saturday), Soyuz MS-26 with Alexei Ovshinin, Ivan Vagner and Donald (Don) Pettit on board landed near the locality of Zhezkazgan,” Russian space agency Roscomos said.
The two Russian cosmonauts and the NASA astronaut spent 220 days in space since they arrived at ISS in September last year. The US space agency celebrated the fact that Petitt returns to Earth on the day of “his 70th birthday, Sunday, April 20”, making him the oldest astronaut in activity. For seven months, Don Pettit “led research to improve 3D printing orbit, wastewater treatment technology, plant cultivation and managing a microgravity fire,” said NASA.
Until March, the two cosmonauts and the astronauts lived at ISS with two American astronauts that should spend only eight days in space and were arrested for more than nine months, after the space ship they traveled was considered inadequate for the return to Earth. The space is one of the last areas of cooperation between the United States and Russia, when relations between Moscow and Washington face one of the most complicated periods due to the Russian offensive in Ukraine.
Posted by Luisa Cardoso
*With information from AFP
