Nasa’s oldest serving astronaut turned 70 as he hurtled back to Earth after a seven-month mission in space.

Don Pettit landed in Kazakhstan in the early hours of his milestone birthday, marking the end of his sixties and his mission aboard the International Space Station (ISS).

A Soyuz capsule carrying Mr Pettit, who is American, and two Russian cosmonauts landed on Sunday morning, hours after undocking from the ISS.

“Today at 0420 Moscow time (0120 GMT), the Soyuz MS-26 landing craft with Alexei Ovchinin, Ivan Vagner and Donald (Don) Pettit aboard landed near the Kazakh town of Zhezkazgan,” Russia’s Roscosmos space agency said.

Space remains a rare avenue of cooperation between Russia and the US, whose relationship broke down after Vladimir Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Mr Pettit and his crew mates, Mr Ovchinin and Mr Vagner, spent 220 days in space, orbiting the Earth 3,520 times and completing a journey of 93.3 million miles over the course of their mission.