#Shorts
An astronaut and avid photographer journeyed 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 departed for the ISS on the Soyuz MS-26 mission on Wednesday, Sept. 11, alongside Soyuz commander Alexey Ovchinin and fellow cosmonaut Ivan Vagner. This began the fourth flight for Ovchinin and the second for Vagner.
Liftoff from the Baikonur Cosmodrome happened at 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.”
