Watch: Elon Musk's SpaceX announces new plan to send tourist around Moon

SpaceX on Thursday announced a new plan to send a tourist around the Moon on its Big Falcon Rocket (BFR), a massive launch vehicle that is being designed to carry people to deep space.

In a tweet, SpaceX said the mission would be “an important step toward enabling access for everyday people who dream of traveling to space.” The launch vehicle would be SpaceX’s yet-to-be-built BFR (Big Falcon Rocket), which is expected to be ready by the early 2020s, rather than the Falcon Heavy as previously planned.

"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," the company said on Twitter.

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In February 2017, SpaceX announced plans to send two passengers around the Moon on the company’s Falcon Heavy rocket, claiming that the flight would happen at the end of 2018.

According to a presentation by CEO Elon Musk last year, the BFR design consists of a combined rocket and spaceship, or the BFS for Big Falcon Ship.

The main rocket will supposedly have 31 main Raptor engines and be capable of sending up 150 tons to low Earth orbit.

Spaceflight has arranged the addition of “several undisclosed payloads” but was able to confirm that Israel-based company SpaceIL’s lunar lander spacecraft – deemed Sparrow – will be onboard Falcon 9 come launch, potentially paving the way for the first-ever commercial spacecraft landing on an extraterrestrial planet.

The United States has not sent astronauts to the Moon since NASA's Apollo missions of the 1960s and '70s.

"We are excited to announce that SpaceX has been approached to fly two private citizens on a trip around the moon late next year," said a statement by CEO Elon Musk in February.