NASA Confirms 70-Year-Old Astronaut Don Pettit Is Doing Well Despite Looking Frail After Landing

NASA’s oldest serving astronaut returned to Earth on Saturday following a 7-month mission on board the International Space Station (ISS). Don Pettit marked his 70th birthday with a special homecoming, although his post-touchdown appearance raised concerns that the astronaut wasn’t doing so well after landing in Kazakhstan.

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Pettit, along with Roscosmos cosmonauts Alexey Ovchinin and Ivan Vagner, departed the ISS on Saturday at 5:57 p.m. ET on board a Soyuz spacecraft before making a parachute-assisted landing at 9:20 p.m. ET, according to NASA. After touching down in the southeast of Dzhezkazgan, Kazakhstan, Pettit was carried off to a medical tent for routine post-landing medical checks. For those who tuned in to NASA’s live feed of the crew touchdown, there was some speculation that Pettit looked especially frail after his stint in space, but the space agency quickly dismissed claims of health concerns.

“According to NASA officials at the landing site, @Astro_Pettit is doing well and in the range of what is expected for him following return to Earth,” NASA wrote on X. The space agency quoted the astronaut from a pre-departure interview he had done from the ISS on April 16, in which he spoke of his post-landing experience, “This is a physiological thing. It affects different people in different ways. Some people can go out and eat pizza and dance. When I land, it takes me about 24 hours to feel like I’m a human being again.”

Happy birthday, @astro_Pettit! Many happy returns (including this one)