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: NASA's efforts to explore Mars, including the first helicopter to achieve powered flight on another planet, made for the "Best Day Ever" aboard a float in the Tournament of Roses Parade on New Year's Day 2025 (Jan. 1). Created by La Cañada Flintridge, the California city where JPL (Jet Propulsion Laboratory) is located, the "Rover Rendezvous" float featured numerous nods to real missions, including a flying Ingenuity rotorcraft.
: John Glenn was "deeply touched" that Blue Origin named its first orbital-class rocket after him, as he expressed in what was his last written correspondence before his death. Now, nine years later, the New Glenn is ready to launch on its maiden mission. Designed to be reusable, the heavy-lift rocket will help fulfill the "original" Glenn's hope for the future: when it is possible for millions to enter orbit like he first did in 1962.
: Mikael Genberg has been working to send a house to the moon for 25 years. Now it is set to happen. Genberg's "Moonhouse," a model cottage styled after Sweden's red houses with white corners, has been mounted to ispace's "Tenacious" rover riding on the company's "Resilience" lunar lander. Genberg previously placed similar homes in a tree, under the water and even launched one to the International Space Station.
: It was the best of times... for fans of lunar exploration as two commercial spacecraft launched on separate paths to the moon aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. Firefly Aerospace's first Blue Ghost lander is now on a 45-day transit, while ispace's Resiliance is expected to take four to five months before arriving at the moon. Blue Ghost is carrying NASA research instruments, while Resilience is delivering a rover and private payloads.
: Blasting off between the end of the Apollo program and the space shuttle's first launch, Space Mountain at Walt Disney World in Florida was itself a blend of what the public thought spaceflight would be like and a "realistic feeling" of what it was like to enter orbit. When the ride opened 50 years ago, an Apollo moonwalker was its first passenger, NASA's insignia was on display and Space Mountain was dedicated to opening the new frontier.
: Blue Origin, the spaceflight company founded by Jeff Bezos, accomplished a successful first flight of its New Glenn rocket, lofting into Earth orbit a pathfinder for the Blue Ring space mobility platform. An attempt at an ocean-based landing of the New Glenn's first stage did not go as well, ending in it being lost. The 320-foot-tall New Glenn was the first rocket to fly from Cape Canaveral's Launch Complex-36 (LC-36) in 20 years.
: The United States Mint has provided a first look at the designs of two coins that will celebrate advancements in space exploration. Set for a spring and summer release, respectively, Florida and Texas' American Innovation dollars will commemorate the space shuttle and Mission Control, the latter represented by the International Space Station and an astronaut on a spacewalk as examples of supporting human spaceflight.
