Don Pettit is heading home from space on his 70th birthday. The NASA astronaut will return on 19 April after completing his fourth mission. Floating aboard the International Space Station (ISS), he has spent 220 days in orbit this time. This brings his total to 590 days across his long career. With more than 3,520 orbits of Earth, Mr Pettit has seen the planet in a way few ever have.

Capturing Earth’s beauty from above

During his mission, Mr Pettit travelled 93.3 million miles in orbit. He regularly shared videos and images that fascinated viewers online. One post featured Starlink satellites flying in perfect formation.

Another showed the ISS rotating 180 degrees with the Northern Lights glowing in the background.

He also filmed auroras shining between Australia and Antarctica. In that clip, he praised fellow space photographer @astro_jannicke, currently on the private FRAM2 mission.

Mr Pettit didn’t stop there. He posted a video showing strange lightning above Amazonian storms. Sprites and Blue Jets flashed across the screen in real time. “This is for your inner Uber-Geek,” he joked in the caption.

Returning home after a long journey

Mr Pettit will leave the ISS aboard Soyuz MS-26. He will travel alongside Roscosmos cosmonauts Alexey Ovchinin and Ivan Vagner. Their spacecraft will undock from the Rassvet module at 5:57 p.m. EDT. The team is expected to land in Kazakhstan at 9:20 p.m. EDT (6:20 a.m. local time, 20 April). The capsule will touch down with parachute assistance near Dzhezkazgan.