A NASA astronaut is back on Earth after a yearlong, record-setting spaceflight.

A U.S. astronaut has made it through nearly a year in space but faces what could be his trickiest assignment yet: riding a Russian capsule back to Earth.

Astronaut Mark Vande Hei learned just last week that he’ll launch April 9 on a Russian rocket to the International Space Station. Tentatively titled “Vyzov," challenge in English, it’s meant to highlight Russian space activities and glorify the cosmonaut profession, according to a news release. Five years have passed since now retired astronaut Scott Kelly completed a 340-day space station mission, a U.S. record. Space station missions typically last six months. Until the private company began providing rides last year, Russia provided the only lift for space station crews once NASA's shuttles stopped flying.

(Nicholas Kamm/Pool via AP)WASHINGTON – Arizona Democrat and former astronaut Mark Kelly was sworn into the Senate on Wednesday, narrowing Republican control of the chamber and underscoring his state's shift from red to blue. Kelly, 56, defeated GOP Sen. Martha McSally in last month's election, making her one of only three incumbents to lose. Kelly's Arizona colleague, Democratic Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, held the Bible on which he took his oath. In what was one of the country's most expensive Senate races, Kelly raised $89 million. That was second only to the $108 million collected by defeated South Carolina Democratic Senate candidate Jaime Harrison, according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics.

Saturday, June 6, 2020, ahead of Tropical Storm Cristobal. A re-energized Tropical Storm Cristobal advanced toward the U.S. Gulf Coast early Saturday, bringing with it the heavy rains that already caused flooding and mudslides in Mexico and Central America. After weakening to a tropical depression while moving over land in Mexico's Gulf coast, Cristobal headed back into the southern Gulf of Mexico from the Yucatan Peninsula on Friday and powered back up into a tropical storm. Outer rain bands from the storm were spreading across parts of the northern Gulf Coast early Sunday, and conditions were expected to deteriorate. A tropical storm warning was posted for the northern Gulf of Mexico coast from Intracoastal City, Louisiana, to the Alabama-Florida border.