Elon Musk’s SpaceX will launch a crewed mission beyond the moon for two private paying customers in 2018, it has been revealed.
It will be the first time in 45 years humans have been in deep space, said the company, promising its mission will go ‘faster and further’ than any humans before them.
The week-long mission will take place some time in late 2018 and will ‘skim the surface of the moon’ then venture into deep space before returning to Earth, Musk revealed.
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SpaceX will launch the private mission on a journey to circumnavigate the moon and return to Earth.
Lift-off will be from Kennedy Space Center’s historic Pad 39A near Cape Canaveral – the same launch pad used by the Apollo program for its lunar missions.
The mission will use one of SpaceX’s Dragon capsules, which will be modified to allow communications in deep space.
The Dragon will be capable of operating autonomously throughout the whole flight, but the passengers will be trained in emergency procedures.
The mission would ‘do a long loop around the moon’ and would take about a week.
Musk says it will ‘skim the surface of the moon, go quite a bit further out into deep space’ and then return to Earth.
The total flight would go about 300,000 to 400,000 miles into space.
Source: SpaceX to send two private citizens to the moon in 2018 | Daily Mail Online
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