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Happy Wednesday, space fans!
Yesterday, NASA made a surprising announcement about its plans for its Artemis Moon Base program. While the agency revealed new lunar landing contracts, which weren't much of a surprise, we also learned that they aim to launch a potential new moon rover mission named PROMISE. But this rover is actually going to be repurposed from a test rover on Earth that has served as the Mars rover Perseverance's double, used for testing over the years. But while it's lived in the "Mars yard" at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory for testing purposes, it could find a whole new life on the moon. What do you think about this odd repurposing?
We also saw a new audit by NASA of Boeing's Starliner, which makes us question if it will ever fly astronauts ever again after the series of issues the program and capsule have faced. Blue Origin has started to rebuild its launch pad after the recent, disastrous explosion with New Glenn, and it was also announced that the U.S. will send a soccer ball into space if it wins the World Cup. And if you're looking for fireworks this July 4 weekend, a solar flare and Earth-bound coronal mass ejection could mean northern lights for some lucky skywatchers.
Check out what's big in space below:
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NASA will send a soccer ball to the moon if the United States wins the FIFA World Cup, agency chief Jared Isaacman said on Tuesday (June 30).
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A new NASA audit says the agency will need to purchase more astronaut flights to the ISS by 2030 and focuses on issues with Boeing's Starliner spacecraft.
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Blue Origin has started rebuilding the launch pad damaged by the explosion of its New Glenn rocket last month, but the company is working from a very different blueprint this time around.
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The X1.1 eruption briefly disrupted radio communications across the daylight side of Earth, while forecasters now expect the accompanying CME to reach Earth on July 3.
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Optical telescopes have come a long way in the past two-and-a-half centuries — from the homemade telescope of William Herschel to the orbiting Hubble Space Telescope.
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NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory has released four stunning images of cosmic wonders, depicted in red, white and blue for the America 250 anniversary on July 4.
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A NASA satellite has found an unintended, important purpose.
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Nintendo and Velan Studios' high-fidelity remake of Star Fox 64 for Switch 2 is an arcade-y blast from the past without major deviations.
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That's it for our space update today!
Stay tuned as we learn more about the White House UFO council (yes, that's a thing). We may also finally see NASA's Swift Boost mission launch this week, and despite the delays we are still very much looking forward to seeing liftoff for this rescue mission that will hopefully keep Swift from falling back to Earth. Speaking of Earth, new science is incoming on Earth-like planets outside of our solar system and what lies ahead for our search for worlds that could possibly support life.
As we inch closer to July 4 weekend, we will also have more fun info to share about space, astronomy, and technology and how our relationship with the night sky has evolved over the lifetime of the U.S. these past 250 years. What did the night sky look like 250 years ago? How has astronomy changed? What have we learned, and what do we still have to learn? (hint: a lot). We'll have the scoop on all things space as we pass this historic milestone. And don't forget, Space.com now has an app! You can download our app on both iOS and Android.
Ad astra, per aspera
Chelsea Gohd
Content Manager, Space.com
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