Andrei Stanescu/iStock(NEW YORK) -- SpaceX is intentionally blowing up one of its Falcon 9 rockets shortly after it launches Sunday, during what it hopes will be the final unmanned test flight before the private aerospace company can send NASA astronauts to the International Space Station.

"We are purposely failing a launch vehicle to make sure that our abort system on the spacecraft that will be flying for our crews works, and so that’s a very, very different way for us to normally conduct a mission,” Kathy Lueders, the manager of the Commercial Crew Program at NASA said at a news conference Friday. "So, this is a very important test."

 The in-flight abort test, which was initially scheduled for a Saturday morning launch from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, is meant to try out the spacecraft Crew Dragon's "escape capabilities" or its ability for astronauts to jettison if there were an emergency during launch, according to a statement from NASA.

NASA and SpaceX canceled Saturday's launch due to "poor splashdown and recovery weather" and moved it to 8 a.m. Sunday, with a six-hour launch window.

SpaceX via NASA

Saturday's SpaceX launch is part of NASA's Commercial Crew program.

It comes just under a month after a separate NASA Commercial Crew launch done in coordination with Boeing did not go as planned and did not make it to its destination at the ISS.

As part of Saturday's test, SpaceX will trigger a launch escape of the Crew Dragon spacecraft from the Falcon 9 rocket at just slightly under two minutes after takeoff, to see if the spacecraft can safely separate from the rocket.

 The Falcon 9 rocket will continue on, following a trajectory meant to mimic a journey to the ISS before eventually -- intentionally -- exploding in the air. A SpaceX team will recover the debris following the break up in the air.

"We expect there to be some sort of ignition and probably a fireball of some kind, whether I would call it an explosion that you would see from the ground I don’t know, we’ll have to see what actually happens," Benji Reed, the director of crew mission management at SpaceX said at a news conference Friday. "But I wouldn’t be surprised and that wouldn’t be a bad outcome if that’s what we saw. "

 If this test succeeds, SpaceX could soon send American astronauts to the ISS from American soil for the first time since the U.S. ended NASA's Space Shuttle mission in 2011.

"Critical test launch before flying astronauts is green for Jan 18," SpaceX CEO Elon Musk tweeted a week ahead of the launch.

Musk previously indicated in a tweet that he hopes to send a crew on the Dragon in 2020. NASA's Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley are tapped to be the first SpaceX Commercial Crew astronauts.

 Saturday's launch will "provide valuable data toward NASA certifying SpaceX’s crew transportation system for carrying astronauts to and from the International Space Station," the NASA statement added.

You can watch the launch and explosion live on NASA TV.

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