NASA Astronaut Don Pettit Soyuz MS-26 Undocking - Saturday, April 19, 2025

NASA astronaut Don Pettit and Roscosmos cosmonauts Alexey Ovchinin and Ivan Vagner closed the hatch of the Soyuz MS-26 spacecraft on April 19 ahead of their landing later that day. Following hatch closure, the vehicle undocked from the International Space Station’s Rassvet module, returning to Earth a few hours later for a parachute-assisted landing on the steppe of Kazakhstan. During his mission, Pettit spent 220 days in space living and working aboard the microgravity laboratory to advance scientific knowledge and demonstrate new technologies for future human and robotic exploration missions as part of NASA’s Moon and Mars exploration approach, including lunar missions through NASA’s Artemis program. Join NASA as we go forward to the Moon and on to Mars -- discover the latest on Earth, the Solar System and beyond with a weekly update in your inbox. Subscribe at: https://www.nasa.gov/subscribe