this is bbc news with the latest headlines for viewers in the uk and around the world. i m victoria fritz. israel s main opposition parties negotiate a coalition deal that could spell the end of benjamin netanyahu s 12 years in power. 50 days before the start of the olympics around 10,000 volunteers pull out over covid concerns. organisers insist the games can be held safely. salvage experts try to tow a burnt out cargo ship, away from the sri lankan coast before tonnes of leaking oil causes an environmental disaster. and back to venus for the first time in decades, nasa announces two new missions to earth s neighbouring planet.
too much on the court. i love myjob but i don t smile too much on the court. but i was very excited to just be out here. and new zealand s cricketers will hope to build up a huge first innings total when day two of the first test against england gets under way at lord s in a few hours time. they ll resume on 246 3 with devon conway 136 not out on his test debut. his unbeaten stand with henry nicholls is worth 132 so far, with both of them still at the crease. you can get all the latest sports news at our website that s bbc.com/sport but from me, austin halewood and the rest of the sport team, bye for now. now, to space, whereas? where else? nasa has announced that it is sending two new missions to venus in order to examine the planet s atmosphere
and geological features. the missions are scheduled to launch at the end of the decade. nasa s last venus orbiter was magellan, which reached the planet all the way back in 1990. since then, there have only been fly bys. so why this announcement now? kailash kalidos is nasa s solar system ambassador, and explained the missions aims. so there is a huge possibility that there is some kind of life it is possible right now on venus. that is one of the reasons we are actually taking a step back and looking at venus again. we have not been to venus in the past 30 years at least nasa has not tried missions in the last 30 years. even before that, the majority of them were failures. part of the reason is because of the hostile conditions and the acidic environment. although there is a belief that venus is like an evil twin to the earth. so once upon a time conditions on venus were very conducive to life. we wanted to go ahead and check that aspect of it and how much
has changed since and why it has changed since. nasa has come up with two brand new missions. the knowledge we gain from venus can be translated into other research and we at nasa are doing a lot of exoplanet research and we will know what kind of life forms can be expected. if we study our a neighbour, it s a better chance to study if we study our neighbour, it s a better chance to study further objects like exoplanets in the future. that is one of the driving motivations, i would say. correct, so one of the reasons venus was exciting for the russian space administration was because earth and venus had a lot of similarities in size. although the atmosphere was conducive, as i already told you, once before. so there were persistent on seeing whether we could so they were persistent on seeing whether we could change something on venus.
nasa s competitor, right? because both of you are trying to go to mars eventually, but nasa has also just announced a new partnership with spacex. what exactly are you hoping to gain from spacex? if tell me a bit more about how that relationship is going to work in terms of the things you are trying to develop as you guys go to the moon and mars? that s a great question, and thank you for asking it. a lot of people seem to believe that nasa and spacex are competitors. in fact, we are not. they are a contractor of nasa, and we pay them to develop capabilities that are essential to the united states of america. for example, right now commercial crew, we are launching astronauts to the international space station within a year for the first time since the retirement of the space shuttle, which i know, kristin, your parents flew on. we re going to go back to international space station for the first time in eight years on commercial rockets. spacex is going to provide one,