NASA astronaut Don Pettit and two cosmonaut colleagues will return to Earth this night (April 19), and you may watch their homecoming stay.
A Russian Soyuz spacecraft carrying Pettit, Alexey Ovchinin and Ivan Vagner is scheduled to undock from the Worldwide House Station (ISS) at present at 5:57 p.m. EDT (2157 GMT). It’ll contact down on the steppe of Kazakhstan about 3.5 hours later at round 9:20 p.m. EDT (0120 GMT and 6:20 a.m. native Kazakh time on April 20).
You possibly can watch the motion stay right here at House.com, courtesy of NASA, or immediately by way of the company.
The departure webcast, nevertheless, will really start at present at 2:00 p.m. EDT (1800 GMT), to cowl farewells and the closing of hatches between the Soyuz and the ISS, which is anticipated to happen at 2:25 p.m. EDT (1825 GMT).
Protection will choose up once more at 5:30 p.m. EDT (1730 GMT) forward of undocking after which once more at 8:00 p.m. EDT (0000 GMT on April 20) for the Soyuz’s deorbit burn, entry, descent and touchdown.
Pettit, Ovchinin and Vagner launched to the ISS on Sept. 11, 2024. The trio have spent 220 days in house on this mission, which is the fourth flight for Pettit and Ovchinin and the second for Vagner.
Pettit’s return to Earth is a little bit of a bummer for house followers, who will quickly be disadvantaged of a supply of enjoyment. The astronaut is famend for his beautiful and artistic off-Earth pictures, which he continuously shares with the general public by way of social media.
Pettit is the oldest lively member of NASA’s astronaut corps. He turns 70 on April 20, that means he can have a good time a fairly epic birthday after touching down in Kazakhstan (despite the fact that it’ll nonetheless be April 19 at that time in his house nation).
