Watch Elon Musk announce the first SpaceX passenger today at 6:00 pm

Tonight, SpaceX will announce the identity of a mysterious passenger who is committed to circling the Moon in the company's Big Falcon Rocket, or BFR. This client will be the first private astronaut in history to visit the Moon (if no one is fighting SpaceX) and be one of the few dozen individuals to have been in the lunar space.

While the announcement is intriguing, we have already been in this way with SpaceX. In February 2017, Musk announced that the company had signed two paid subscriptions to bypass the Moon on the Falcon Heavy rocket by the end of 2018. Very little detail was given about the identity of these people; All Musk said was that they did not come from Hollywood, and both had filed a "major deposit" for the trip. However, during the inaugural Falcon Heavy flight last February, Musk admitted that SpaceX would skip the Moon trip with Falcon Heavy and go directly to the BFR.

It is unclear if this new client is one of the two Musk talked about last year. The only clue we have about the passenger is that he could have been from Japan since Musk tweeted an emoji from the Japanese flag to someone who asked for the client's identity. We do not know the type of mission this person will participate in, other than the fact that it is a trip around the moon. Will this person be alone on a trip or will she have an expert for the trip? And if that East one of the passengers who signed up to fly on Falcon Heavy, what happened to the other? Oh, and how much does this person spend on the trip?

Hopefully, SpaceX will provide answers tonight at the press conference, which should begin at 9:00 pm ET. It seems that we can also have an update on the design of the WCR.

The BFR is the next-generation SpaceX vehicle that the company hopes to fly to the Moon and Mars. Its design requires a truly massive vehicle, which rises to 348 feet in height, or the height of a 35-storey building. It is currently under development at the Port of Los Angeles, near SpaceX's headquarters, and the company has shown and tested some key pieces of equipment developed for the vehicle, such as its giant propellant tanks and its sub-engine versions. ladder. engines.

Musk gave many details on the design of the BFR at last year's International Astronautical Congress, an annual space conference held in the fall. The BFR is actually two vehicles in one: it is a huge propulsion rocket that is supposed to propel a giant spacecraft, the Big Falcon Spaceship (BFS), into orbit. The rocket portion would be propelled by 31 Raptors, a new type of monster engine on which SpaceX has been working for ten years. Each Raptor is supposed to produce at least 380,000 pounds of thrust. With all this combined power, the BFR should be able to place up to 150 tons of payload in low Earth orbit, according to Musk. He will also use these engines to land on Earth after launch, similar to the company's Falcon 9 vehicles.

Meanwhile, the BFS, which should have a capacity of about 100 passengers, was supposed to have six clean engines that the vehicle would also use to land on the surface of other worlds. These engines included two smaller ones optimized to operate in sea level atmospheres and four that could operate in a vacuum of space. These engines are also crucial for launching the BFS out of these other worlds and into space.

However, all these design specifications may change. When SpaceX announced on Twitter that it would unveil this client on Monday, the company released a new rendition of the BFS in front of the Moon. And Musk has since tweeted new renderings of the spaceship-rocket combo. The bright-eyed viewers noticed that the BFS had seven engines, instead of the original six, and that they all seemed to be the same size. In addition, the BFS now seems to have a third fin that was not there before. Musk said on Twitter that the design had changed so that landing legs extend tips of the fins. The renderings do not show either the fins of the grid on the rocket, which are necessary to bring the vehicle back to Earth, but Musk said: they forgot to add them to the rendering.

But perhaps the biggest questions that SpaceX should be answering tonight revolve around the company's finances and whether it has the funds to create the rocket. Musk once quoted that the The development of BFR could cost about $ 10 billionalthough it is unknown if this number has changed. He also said that he thought SpaceX could fund it with money from existing NASA contracts and by launching commercial satellites. Then, once the vehicle is built, it could be used to send cargoes to the International Space Station, perform lunar missions and even send passengers across the Earth. However, SpaceX is known to sell rockets at a lower price than its competitors, and although the company says its cash flow is positive, it is unclear whether its profits are sufficient to contribute to the development of BFR.

Then there is the big question of when. Musk, known for his optimistic delays, said he thought the BFR could make his first trip to Mars in 2022. And SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell noted this month that the BFS vehicle portion would perform short jumping tests by the end of next year. These tests will likely involve launching the spacecraft at a certain altitude above the Earth, then trying to bring it back to the ground to see if it can land gently. As for how this trip to the moon will fit in this timeline, this is a question Musk hopes to answer tonight.

Of course, developing rockets takes time. The Falcon Heavy took more than twice as long as Musk expected. In 2011, he suggested a launch in 2013 or 2014, but it was finally launched for the first time this year. The serious development of BFR seems to have begun in recent years, which does not leave much time before the so-called 2022 flight to Mars. It would be helpful for Musk to provide updates on BFR milestones to give people a better idea of ​​the validity of these dates.

Tonight's announcement will be broadcast live. Check back at 9:00 pm ET to see the new details released by SpaceX.