SpaceX

Musk chosen 'for creating solutions to an existential crisis, embodying the possibilities and the perils of the age of tech titans and driving society's most daring and disruptive transformations.'

It was not immediately clear if Musk, a prolific user of the social media platform and the world's richest man, was being serious about quitting his roles.

The first-of-its-kind mission will head to the asteroid Dimorphos in the Didymos system and test kinetic impactors to see if an asteroid’s trajectory can be altered.

Here's everything you need to know about NASA's mission to deflect asteroids.

The astronaut team arriving on Thursday was officially designated "Crew 3" - the third full-fledged "operational" crew that NASA and SpaceX have flown together to the space station.

Operating autonomously, the spacecraft began its departure with a 90-minute fly-around of the space station as the crew snapped a series of survey photographs of the orbiting outpost.

The astronauts boarding the Endeavour's return flight will have to use diapers on their return flight due to a broken toilet.

SpaceX supplied the spacecraft, launched it from Florida and flew it from the company's suburban Los Angeles headquarters.

The quartet of amateur astronauts, led by the American founder and chief executive of financial services firm Shift4 Payments Inc, Jared Isaacman, lifted off just before sunset.