NASA’s oldest active astronaut, Don Pettit, returned to Earth from the International Space Station on his 70th birthday, April 20.

He and his Soyuz MS-26 crewmates, Russian cosmonauts Aleksey Ovchinin and Ivan Vagner, landed in Kazakhstan after 220 days in space.

Pettit, who now has a career total of 590 days in orbit, conducted science experiments, photographed Earth, and helped manage crew and cargo missions during his stay, Space.com has reported.

The landing marked his fourth spaceflight and a symbolic “homecoming,” even 12,000 miles from his birthplace in Oregon.

Written by B.C. Begley