Q&A with Keith Gendreau, principal investigator of the first X-ray space communications experiment (members only)

A year-and-a-half after announcing plans to launch two private citizens on a flight around the moon using the company’s Falcon Heavy rocket and Dragon capsule, SpaceX posted a tweet late Thursday announcing apparently revised plans to launch a “private passenger” on a moon flight using SpaceX’s new BFR rocket.

The change will allow the U.S. Space Force to expedite the process of building out its GPS constellation in medium Earth orbit. The launch date for the next satellite, GPS III Space Vehicle 09, could be within weeks.

SpaceX is preparing for liftoff Tuesday of its first mission for the U.S. Space Force, a launch from Cape Canaveral that will deploy a new GPS navigation satellite using a redesigned profile to allow the Falcon 9 rocket’s first stage booster to reserve enough propellant for landing on SpaceX’s drone ship in the Atlantic Ocean.