South Korea aims to make a Mars landing by 2045, President Yoon Suk Yeol said Thursday, outlining plans to spend about $70 billion over the coming decades on space exploration.

The newly created Korea Aerospace Administration (KASA) will lead the drive to make the land of K-pop a new space powerhouse, following the United States, Russia and China.

"I have always believed that there is an infinite dream and future in outer space," Yoon said on Thursday.

"KASA will strive to land a homegrown probe on the moon by 2032 and plant the Taegeukgi (South Korean flag) on Mars by 2045," he said.

South Korea sent up its first lunar orbiter, Danuri, in 2022 on a SpaceX Falcon rocket.

It also successfully launched its homegrown Nuri rocket and placed working satellites into orbit last year after two failed attempts.

Seoul is now gearing up for its fourth launch of the Nuri rocket in the second half of 2025.

Modeled after the United States' NASA, KASA says it will act as an "aerospace control tower", overseeing aerospace policy, satellite development and space missions, including moon exploration.

Like humans, fruit flies (a model organism for spaceflight research) also exhibit immune system dysfunction in space. Despite decades of studies on fruit flies and wasps, little was known about how their immune systems interact with natural parasites in space. Drosophila parasitoid wasps modify blood cell function to suppress host immunity.

NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams returned to Kennedy Space Center on May 28 as their much-delayed flight to the International Space Station aboard Boeing's CST-100 Starliner looks like it may finally happen Saturday.

The duo are slated to climb back aboard the capsule and fly atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station's Space Launch Complex 41 at 12:25 p.m., with a backup launch opportunity on Sunday. ULA said the weather forecast calls for 90% good conditions at the launch site for both days, although the weather also has to be clear along the launch corridor in the event of an emergency abort.

Dubbed the Crew Flight Test, the mission marks the first human spaceflight for Starliner as Boeing tries to play catchup to SpaceX as part of NASA's Commercial Crew Program. SpaceX launched its first crewed test flight of its Crew Dragon on May 30, 2020, so Starliner's launch will come just over four years since that flight.

Wilmore and Williams came within two hours of launch back on May 6.