The future of manned space flight, at least according to developers at commercial transport company SpaceX, is scheduled to be revealed Thursday night, and broadcast live over the company's Website.

After years in the making, California-based SpaceX, otherwise known as Space Exploration Technologies Corp.,will unveil the manned version of its Dragon spacecraft -- the automated version of which has already flown several cargo missions to the orbiting International Space Station.

Elon Musk, the company's CEO, will introduce the design for the manned Dragon spacecraft tonight, starting at at 10 p.m. EDT/7 p.m. PDT (2 a.m. May 30 GMT) during an invitation-only event at the SpaceX headquarters in Hawthorne, California.

Courtesy of SpaceX's webcast, you can watch the SpaceX Dragon unveiling live, at https://www.spacex.com/webcast/.

According to a posting on the company site, the Dragon V2, or Version 2, is a gumdrop-shaped capsule designed to carry up to seven astronauts -- the maximum crew capacity of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's retired space shuttles -- to and from low-Earth orbit.

According to SpaceX, the newly-designed craft will provide more than twice the passenger room of Russia's three-person Soyuz space capsules, on which NASA astronauts, for about the last three years, have been transporting to and back from the space station for $70.7 million per seat.

The unmanned Dragon cargo capsules have delivered supplies to the space station since 2012, under a $1.6 billion contract with NASA. The latest Dragon cargo mission launched in April and returned to Earth earlier this month.

Like its automated counterpart, the Dragon V2 will launch atop SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket, be powered by solar panels, carry parachutes for a water landings and also sport launch abort engines called SuperDraco thrusters that would provide an escape option during a launch emergency.

The Dragon V2, which will in fact include unpressurized space in the back of the craft capable of holding up to 490 cubic feet (14 cubic meters) of cargo, is expected to have a forward-mounted docking system.

At least some funding to develop the manned Dragon has been given to SpaceX through NASA's Commercial Crew Program, which aims to have at least one America-based astronaut taxi ready by 2017.

SpaceX says on its website that the manned Dragon will be ready for manned mission in about two to three years.