NASA and the White House say an international astronaut will be invited on a future moon landing.

The four astronauts assigned to fly around the moon for the first time in 50 years have met with President Joe Biden at the White House.

The four astronauts assigned to fly around the moon next year have gotten their first look at their spacecraft.

A SpaceX capsule carrying four astronauts has departed the International Space Station and is aiming for a rare nighttime splashdown.

SpaceX will attempt the first U.S. splashdown of returning astronauts in darkness since the Apollo 8 moonshot in 1968.

NASA and SpaceX are promising more Coast Guard patrols and fewer pleasure boaters for this weekend's splashdown by four astronauts.

The astronauts are rearranging space station plumbing and tackling other odd jobs. (NASA via AP)CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – Spacewalking astronauts had to take extra safety precautions Saturday after possibly getting toxic ammonia on their suits from the International Space Station's external cooling system. But so much ammonia spewed out of the first hose that Mission Control worried some of the frozen white flakes might have gotten on their suits. As a result, Mission Control said it was going to “be conservative" and require inspections. NASA did not want any ammonia getting inside the space station and contaminating the cabin atmosphere.

This photo provided by NASA shows US astronaut Kate Rubins outside the International Space Station during a space walk on Friday, March 5, 2021. Rubins and Japan's Soichi Noguchi floated outside to complete unfinished work from Sunday's spacewalk. More mounting brackets and struts need to be installed for new and improved solar panels due to arrive in June. (NASA via AP)

More mounting brackets and struts need to be installed for new and improved solar panels due to arrive in June. (NASA via AP)CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – Spacewalking astronauts completed the first round of prep work Friday for new solar panels, part of a major power upgrade at the International Space Station. NASA’s Kate Rubins and Japan’s Soichi Noguchi installed mounting brackets and struts for the improved solar wings due to arrive in June. The eight solar panels have degraded over time; the oldest were launched 20 years ago. Noguchi, Glover and two other NASA astronauts will fly SpaceX back in late April or May.

In this image taken from NASA video, NASA astronauts Kate Rubins, top, and Victor Glover work outside the International Space Station Sunday, Feb. 28, 2021. The spacewalking astronauts ventured out Sunday to install support frames for new, high-efficiency solar panels arriving at the International Space Station later this year. (NASA via AP)CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – Spacewalking astronauts ventured out Sunday to install support frames for new, high-efficiency solar panels arriving at the International Space Station later this year. With more people and experiments flying on the space station, more power will be needed to keep everything running, according to NASA. The eight solar panels up there now are 12 to 20 years old — most of them past their design lifetime and deteriorating.

In this image taken from NASA video, NASA astronauts Mike Hopkins, left, and Victor Glover work outside the International Space Station on Monday, Feb. 1, 2021. The pair ventured out on their second spacewalk in under a week Monday to complete a four-year effort to modernize the International Space Station's power grid. Although the spacewalk got started late, Hopkins and Glover hustled through the battery work in under an hour. AdThe space station is now equipped with 24 lithium-ion batteries to store power collected by the solar panels. In all, 14 spacewalks were needed to complete the battery work.

In this image taken from NASA video, NASA astronaut Mike Hopkins works outside the International Space Stations European lab on Wednesday, Jan. 27, 2021. Hopkins and Victor Glover went spacewalking Wednesday to install a high-speed data link outside the International Space Stations European lab and connect cables for an experiment platform awaiting activation for almost a year. (NASA via AP)CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – Spacewalking astronauts encountered cable trouble Wednesday while attempting to make improvements to the International Space Station’s European lab. Elsewhere on the lab, Glover could not hook up all the power and data cables on a science research platform that's been awaiting activation for almost a year. Hopkins and Glover will perform a second spacewalk on Monday to complete battery upgrades to the station’s solar power grid.

SpaceX delivered its second crew of astronauts to the International Space Station late Monday night, just 27 hours after their launch from NASA's Kennedy Space Center. In their first press conference from orbit, the four astronauts described Sunday night's launch and their first impressions of the space station, their new home until spring. It's the first time the space station has had seven long-term crew members all at once, which is expected to boost scientific output. There's energy up here,” said NASA astronaut Kate Rubins, who arrived on a Russian Soyuz capsule a month ago. NASA turned to SpaceX and Boeing to transport astronauts to the space station from the U.S. following the 2011 retirement of the shuttle fleet, reducing America's costly reliance on Russian rockets.

In this frame grab from NASA TV, the SpaceX Dragon is seen after docking at the International Space Station, late Monday, Nov. 16, 2020. (NASA TV via AP)CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – SpaceX’s newly launched capsule with four astronauts arrived Monday at the International Space Station, their new home until spring. The Dragon capsule pulled up and docked late Monday night, following a 27-hour, completely automated flight from NASA's Kennedy Space Center. “Oh, what a good voice to hear,” space station astronaut Kate Rubins called out when the Dragon's commander, Mike Hopkins, first made radio contact. And so it will go, with SpaceX — and eventually Boeing — transporting astronauts to and from the station for NASA.

The three Americans and one Japanese should reach the International Space Station late Monday for a five- to six-month stay, following Sunday's liftoff from NASA's Kennedy Space Center. A brief look at each:—Crew commander Mike Hopkins, 51, is an Air Force colonel and former space station resident who grew up on a hog and cattle farm in Missouri. He played football for the University of Illinois and, before becoming an astronaut in 2009, worked at the Pentagon. —Shannon Walker, 55, a Houston-born-and-raised physicist, also has lived before on the space station. She worked as a flight controller at NASA’s Johnson Space Center and then behind the scenes in the space station program, before becoming an astronaut in 2004.

With COVID-19 still surging, NASA continued the safety precautions put in place for SpaceX’s crew launch in May. Even the two astronauts on the first SpaceX crew flight stayed behind at Johnson Space Center in Houston. “I didn’t start breathing until about a minute after it took off,” Pence said during a stop at SpaceX Launch Control to congratulate the workers. Similar pleas for SpaceX’s first crew launch on May 30 went unheeded. The first-stage booster is expected to be recycled by SpaceX for the next crew launch.

For NASA, it marks the long-awaited start of regular crew rotations at the International Space Station, with private companies providing the lifts. It will be a speedy trip to the space station, a six-orbit express lasting under nine hours. “Every time there’s a Dragon launch, there will be two Dragons in space,” said Reed, director of crew mission management. NASA turned to private companies for space station deliveries — cargo, then crew — following the shuttle fleet's retirement in 2011. They will join two Russians and one American who arrived at the space station last month from Kazakhstan.