SpaceX is making a big announcement today about its trip to the moon. The company is planning to send a private passenger on an orbit around the moon (without landing). This will be the world’s first private passenger to fly around the moon, but SpaceX hopes to have many more. No one has visited the moon since the Apollo mission in 1972. You can watch the live stream of the announcement above.
The announcement is scheduled to begin Monday, September 17 at 6 p.m. Pacific. This is 8 p.m. Central and 9 p.m. Eastern. The trip will take place on SpaceX’s BFR (Big Falcon Rocket), which will also be revealed during the webcast from Hawthorne, California. This is being called the BFR Lunar Mission.
On Twitter Thursday, SpaceX representatives noted: “SpaceX has signed the world’s first private passenger to fly around the Moon aboard our BFR launch vehicle—an important step toward enabling access for everyday people who dream of traveling to space. Find out who’s flying and why on Monday, September 17.”
SpaceX has signed the world’s first private passenger to fly around the Moon aboard our BFR launch vehicle—an important step toward enabling access for everyday people who dream of traveling to space. Find out who’s flying and why on Monday, September 17.
From photos released by Elon Musk, the crewed ship appears to have three fins and a heat shield, with a deployable forward-moving wing near the nose.
The BFR system was first unveiled in 2016, with hopes that it will be ready for a crewed flight to Mars in 2024. This will ultimately replace the Falcon Heavy rocket, which was originally going to be the rocket that carried a crewed mission to space.
This is a developing story.
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