NASA's oldest astronaut returns to earth

WASHINGTON, Apr 20 (AFP): Cake, gifts and a low-key family celebration may be how many senior citizens picture their 70th birthday.

But NASA's oldest serving astronaut Don Pettit became a septuagenarian while hurtling towards the Earth in a spacecraft to wrap up a seven-month mission aboard the International Space Station (ISS).

A Soyuz capsule carrying the American and two Russian cosmonauts landed in Kazakhstan on Sunday, the day of Pettit's birthday.

Spending 220 days in space, Pettit and his crewmates orbited Earth 3,520 times.