Sunday, September 16, 2018

SpaceX to Announce 1st Private Passenger for BFR Mission to the Moon


Artists rendition of SpaceX BFR rocket intended to send 1st private passenger on a mission around the Moon. Credit: SpaceX
Ken Kremer  --   SpaceUpClose.com  --   15 September 2018

CAPE CANAVERAL, FL –  SpaceX announced they will reveal the name of the first private passenger who will fly to the Moon on the firm’s BFR rocket currently under development, in a short email sent out to media late Thursday, September 13.  

The big reveal will be made by none other than Elon Musk, the CEO and billionaire founder of SpaceX during a live event to be webcast Monday evening, September 17, 9 p.m. EDT, 6 p.m. PDT.
The announcement involves “the World’s First Private Passenger to Fly Around the Moon Aboard BFR,” said SpaceX.
BFR, which stands for ‘Big Falcon (or you name it) Rocket, is SpaceX’s new Saturn V class heavy lift rocket that’s currently under development and not flown and is intended to send humans to the Moon, Mars and beyond sometime in the next decade.  
This is a significant change from earlier plans announced by Elon Musk about 18 months ago to much fanfare when he said in Feb 2017 that two private paying passengers – whose names were not revealed – would launch in a Crew Dragon atop the Falcon Heavy rocket by late 2018.
Earlier this year, Musk cancelled that intended lunar Falcon Heavy mission, which finally flew on its maiden mission in February of this year from Launch Complex 39A at the Kennedy Space Center.  Falcon Heavy will not be human rated he added. 
“It looks like BFR development is moving quickly, and it will not be necessary to qualify Falcon Heavy for crewed spaceflight,” Musk said during Falcon Heavy media briefing with reporters. “We kind of tabled the Crew Dragon on Falcon Heavy in favor of focusing our energy on BFR.”


Launch of SpaceX Falcon Heavy on debut test flight from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Feb. 6, 2018.  Credit: Ken Kremer/SpaceUpClose.com/kenkremer.com

The Crew Dragon has not yet flown but the maiden unpiloted mission is currently slated for late November.
“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,” SpaceX tweeted.
“Find out who’s flying and why on Monday, September 17.

The timing, cost, length, trajectory and many other details are not known at this time. For example whether it will brake into orbit around the Moon or simply loop around it. 
In a follow up tweet SpaceX reminded everyone that “Only 24 humans have been to the Moon in history. No one has visited since the last Apollo mission in 1972.”
The event is open to media. 

It will be held “at SpaceX’s headquarters and rocket factory in Hawthorne, California on Monday, September 17 where SpaceX CEO and Lead Designer Elon Musk will announce the world’s first private passenger scheduled to fly around the Moon aboard SpaceX’s BFR launch vehicle.”  

Watch the webcast here:

https://www.spacex.com/webcast


SpaceX also released a graphic showing the crewed vehicle which looks remarkably like a NASA space shuttle and is also quite different from earlier renditions.  
The artwork shows 7 engines firing at the rear with shuttle like wings at the back and winglets and windows at the front.
The two stage BFR is designed to be fully reusable and stand 350 feet tall. The first stage is to be equipped with powerful Raptor engines.

No much is really known about the design and development and costs of the BFR. 
Responding to a twitter question asking “Is that render a new version of BFR??
Musk simply replied “Yes” on twitter. 
NASA’s Apollo 17 was the last human mission to launch to the Moon in 1972 with two NASA astronauts making three EVA spacewalks on the lunar surface.

NASA is developing the Space launch System (SLS) heavy lift rocket and Orion deep space crew capsule to send Americans back to the Moon.
The first piloted Orion is slated for launch on SLS in 2022 NASA officials told Space UpClose in an interview last week at the Kennedy Space Center. 
Watch for Ken’s continuing onsite coverage of NASA, SpaceX, ULA, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Orbital ATK and more space and mission reports direct from the Kennedy Space Center, Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida and Wallops Flight Facility, Virginia.

Stay tuned here for Ken's continuing Earth and Planetary science and human spaceflight news: www.kenkremer.com –www.spaceupclose.com – twitter @ken_kremer – email: ken at kenkremer.com
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Ken’s photos are for sale and he is available for lectures and outreach events


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