SpaceX to fly private passenger spacecraft around moon

SpaceX is planning to fly a private passenger spacecraft around the moon. SpaceX announced that it "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."

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"Find out who's flying and why on Monday, September 17," SpaceX said in a tweet. 

The Big Falcon Rocket, is SpaceX's upcoming two-stage reusable spaceship system that will be capable of taking a 330,000-pound payload to Mars and lower-Earth orbit LEO. It will eventually replace SpaceX's other launch vehicles, the Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy, as well as its Dragon spacecraft.

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk responded on Twitter with an emoji of the Japanese flag, leading some to believe it might be SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son to fly in the spacecraft.

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SpaceX's mysterious passenger won't be the world's first space tourist. Earlier, American engineer and multimillionaire Dennis Tito, who was the first non-astronaut to travel to the space, paid 20 million U.S. dollars to spend eight days on the International Space Station in April 2001.

The last space tourist was Canadian businessman Guy Laliberté, who flew to the International Space Station in 2009.