An astronaut and avid photographer is heading back to space for a fourth time on Wednesday. NASA astronaut Don Pettit, first ventured to the International Space Station as a member of Expedition 6 in November 2003 and last returned from a trip to the orbiting outpost on July 1, 2012.
Pettit will depart for the ISS once again on the Soyuz MS-26 mission on Wednesday, Sept. 11, alongside Soyuz commander Alexey Ovchinin and fellow cosmonaut Ivan Vagner. This will be the fourth flight for Ovchinin and the second for Vagner.
Liftoff from the Baikonur Cosmodrome is set for 9:23 p.m. MSK (12:23 p.m. EDT, 1623 UTC).
During prelaunch interviews on Aug. 16, Pettit described being in space as his “home away from home.”
“Each time you go into space, it’s a little different. Things have changed since your last visit,” Pettit said. “Like a cowboy that wants to be on a horse out in the range, I’m an astronaut that needs to be sitting on a rocket and flying in space.”
Once on orbit, the space station will transition from Expedition 71 to Expedition 72. That will be made official with the departure of Soyuz MS-25 and its crew: Oleg Kononenko, Nikolai Chub and Tracy Dyson.
Pettit takes credit for the design of the mission patch that will represent Expedition 72. He said he was inspired by the simplicity of the Expedition 1 patch, which led to the forthcoming design.
“I told the NASA graphic designer to make an Expedition 1-type patch, make it round instead of rectangular, but bring the configuration of the space station up to date,” Pettit said. “And he did that, Sean Collins did. And he even put the iROSA solar panel upgrades on the profile of station in their proper location. So, I like the simplicity of this patch.”
Expedition 72 starts in September about a week after I dock at @Space_Station with my Soyuz crew.
When designing this mission patch, I wanted something simple and patterned after Expedition 1, which had a front profile view of space station’s configuration at that time.
This… pic.twitter.com/Cu7QWT2Pgt
— Don Pettit (@astro_Pettit) June 5, 2024
Among Pettit’s contributions to the astronaut office since his selection in 1996, he is known for his striking photography captured while on orbit. One of his objectives will be working with the camera used in the videos displayed within the MSG Sphere in Las Vegas.
He said he’s also looking forward to advancing the ability to take more dynamic nighttime images while on orbit.
“I’ve actually talked NASA into flying a number of new lenses, highly optimized for nighttime imagery and they just arrived on station with NG-21,” Pettit said, referring to the recently launched Northrop Grumman Cygnus spacecraft. “I’m looking forward to putting these nighttime optimized lenses to use.”
Pettit also has the distinction of taking the one millionth photo on the ISS in 2012. He said his focus when he returns is not on hitting a number, but on capturing “interesting phenomenon.”
“One phenomenon that has recently come about that I really want to see if I can capture is this atmospheric phenomenon, typically associated with the aurora, called STEVE (Strong Thermal Emission Velocity Enhancement ),” Pettit explained. “I’ve looked back at my Expedition 30/31 images to see if I inadvertently captured STEVE. So far, I have not seen any imagery with STEVE both from my mission and from missions since then, so I’m hoping to really see if I can capture a large scale view of the STEVE phenomenon.”
One of my star trails from @Space_Station, blurring golden city lights with the arcing stars of deep space.
Composites like this are made from many images, creating a time history of earthly and cosmic phenomena that maps our universe as a function of time. The blue marks of… pic.twitter.com/w1lK39HFuP
— Don Pettit (@astro_Pettit) June 1, 2024
Pettit will be returning to an ISS advanced by more than a decade of development. He said turned to NASA astronauts Mike Barratt and Tracy Dyson to get their insight as fellow travelers who have also been away from the ISS for more than 10 years.
“I was surprised at their answer. They said station is cleaner, more organized and the software tools we have for stowage and for doing inventory management and even our operating days through the scheduled timeline, these tools, these software tools are so much more efficient than what we had in the past,” Pettit said.
“They were impressed with the efficiencies of operation on space station compared to how it was 10, 12 and in some cases, 14 years ago.”
During his time in between missions, Pettit has been busy with duties within the astronaut office, including serving as a technical astronaut working on NASA’s Gateway program and the Human Landing System version of SpaceX’s Starship rocket.
But he said there’s nothing that can supplant the sensation of actually traveling back to space himself.
“There’s just a certain facet of when I go into space that just fundamentally is just fundamentally on resonance with my soul,” Pettit said. “I feel extremely fortunate and am please and excited that I have another opportunity to fly into space.”
When asked if this will be his last spaceflight, Pettit simply replied, “No, I like to say, this is my next spaceflight.”
