SpaceX says it will fly private passenger 'around the Moon'
SpaceX is set to make a historic announcement, revealing the first private passenger to fly around the Moon on one of its spacecraft.
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk took to Twitter to show off two new images of the BFR, ahead of the announcement tonight as to who the private passenger is that the company will fly "around the Moon."
The images of the Big Falcon Rocket (Musk has given it another name) show a rocket with fins on the side. It also has a forward moving wing near the nose, Musk wrote on Twitter.
When someone asked if it was supposed to look like a shark, Musk simply replied "with lasers," a reference to the Austin Powers movie series.
SPACEX MAKES HISTORIC ANNOUNCEMENT, SAYS IT WILL FLY PRIVATE PASSENGER 'AROUND THE MOON'
SpaceX said it will announce the name of the private passenger at 9 p.m. EDT Monday, in an event that will be webcast. The event will be held at the company's Hawthorne, Calif. headquarters, conveniently located next to Tesla's design shop, Musk's other company.
The Musk-led space company called the announcement "an important step toward enabling access for everyday people who dream of traveling to space."
SpaceX's BFR
The BFR is SpaceX's upcoming two-stage reusable spaceship system that will weigh 9.7 million pounds and be capable of taking a 330,000 pound payload to Mars and lower-Earth orbit (LEO). The BFR, announced in September 2017, will eventually replace SpaceX's other launch vehicles, the Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy, as well as its Dragon spacecraft.
In April, Musk posted a picture to Instagram (since removed) of what he described as the “main body tool” for his company’s BFR interplanetary spaceship.
In an interview in March, Musk said the ship was currently being built, adding "I think we'll probably be able to do short flights, short sort of up-and-down flights, probably sometime in the first half of next year."
Shortly after his successful Falcon Heavy Launch, Musk said he expected a “full-scale test” of the massive rocket within the next few years.
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Musk described a slightly scaled-down 348-foot-tall rocket in September 2017 and announced that the private space company aimed to launch two cargo missions to Mars in 2022. He called the goals at the time “aspirational.”
Two more cargo missions will follow in 2024 to provide more construction materials, along with two crewed flights, according to earlier reports. The window for launching to Mars occurs every two years.
Fox News' Edmund DeMarche and the Associated Press contributed to this report. Follow Chris Ciaccia on Twitter @Chris_Ciaccia
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