NASA astronaut comes home after circling Earth 3,920 times

After 245 days in orbit aboard the International Space Station (ISS), one NASA astronaut and two cosmonauts have safely returned to Earth. NASA’s Jonny Kim along with Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergey Ryzhikov and Alexey Zubritsky landed near the town of Zhezkazgan, Kazakhstan on December 9, and are now undergoing the standard post-mission health screenings.

Kim officially became an astronaut in 2017. Expedition 72 and Expedition 73 marked Kim’s first visit to the ISS, where he served as a flight engineer and flight surgeon for eight months while helping to conduct a number of scientific and technological research projects. By the time he undocked from the ISS on December 8, the U.S. Navy Lieutenant Commander had completed 3,920 orbits of Earth, totalling a distance of nearly 104 million miles.

During Kim’s two-years of NASA astronaut candidate training, he learned the ISS systems’ technical and operational instructions, received flight training, wilderness survival training–all while studying robotics, field geology, as well as Russian. Prior to his NASA tenure, Kim completed over 100 combat operations as a Navy SEAL, and earned a doctorate of medicine from Harvard Medical School.

NASA astronaut Jonny Kim is carried to a medical tent shortly after he, and Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergey Ryzhikov, and Alexey Zubritsky, landed in their Soyuz MS-27 spacecraft near the town of Zhezkazgan, Kazakhstan on Tuesday, Dec. 9, 2025. The trio returned to Earth after logging 245 days in space as a members of Expeditions 72 and 73 aboard the International Space Station. Credit: NASA / Bill Ingalls (NASA/Bill Ingalls)

NASA astronaut Jonny Kim is seen outside the Soyuz MS-27 spacecraft, with a gifted Matryoshka Doll, after he landed with Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergey Ryzhikov, and Alexey Zubritsky in a remote area near the town of Zhezkazgan, Kazakhstan on Tuesday, Dec. 9, 2025. The trio returned to Earth after logging 245 days in space as a members of Expeditions 72 and 73 aboard the International Space Station. Photo Credit: NASA / Bill Ingalls
(NASA/Bill Ingalls)

In a video posted to social media shortly before his departure from the ISS, Kim said, “When I think about what was most important during the mission, I don’t think about the science.It kind of goes back to that old saying, ‘It’s the people you’re with that’s really important.’”