Oldest US Astronaut Lands in Time to Celebrate His 70th

Seniors including George HW Bush have marked advanced birthdays by skydiving. Don Pettit, NASA's oldest astronaut still flying, marked his 70th on Sunday by landing safely on Earth after seven months on the International Space Station. The Soyuz MS-26 space capsule with Pettit and Russian crewmates Alexey Ovchinin and Ivan Vagner aboard parachuted to a remote spot southeast of Zhezkazgan in Kazakhstan's steppe after a three-hour flight, the BBC reports. Each astronaut gave a thumbs-up while being carried to a medical tent.

A NASA statement said Pettit was "doing well and in the range of what is expected for him following return to Earth," per the Guardian. The crew will take time to get used to gravity again. Then Pettit is to be flown to the Kazakh city of Karaganda, where he'll board a NASA plane bound for the Johnson Space Center in Texas. NASA said the crew conducted research on the space station on water sanitization technology, plant growth under different conditions, and fire behavior in microgravity. John Glenn remains the oldest person in orbit; he was 77 on his final NASA mission in 1998. (More NASA stories.)