Last week, SpaceX announced that a four-person flight is set to make spaceflight history later this year by launching the first crewed mission to explore Earth’s polar regions.
Aboard the flight will be a blockchain entrepreneur, a cinematographer, a polar adventurer, and a robotics researcher who will become the first humans to observe the ice caps and extreme polar environments. The mission, known as “Fram2,” in honor of the Norwegian ship that made pioneering voyages to the Arctic and Antarctic between 1893 and 1912, will last three to five days, flying at altitudes between about 265 and 280 miles.
The historic flight is set to launch from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida and will be commanded by Chun Wang, a wealthy Bitcoin pioneer who founded f2pool and stakefish, “which are among the largest Bitcoin mining pools and Ethereum staking providers,” the crew’s website says.
Joining Wang are Norwegian cinematographer Jannicke Mikkelsen, Australian adventurer Eric Pillips, and German robotics researcher Rabea Rogge. The team of four has a shared interest in extreme polar environments, with the mission planned to carry out the team’s related research and photography from orbit.
“Wang aims to use the mission to highlight the crew’s explorational spirit, bring a sense of wonder and curiosity to the larger public and highlight how technology can help push the boundaries of exploration of Earth and through the mission’s research,” SpaceX said on its website.
Billionaire philanthropist who charted the first private SpaceX mission, Inspiration4, Jared Isaacman tweeted, “This looks like a cool & well thought out mission. I wish the @framonauts the best on this epic exploration adventure!” Isaacman further remarked that the flights “showcase what commercial missions can achieve thanks to @SpaceX’s reusability and NASA’s vision with the commercial crew program… All just small steps towards unlocking the last great frontier.”
Similar to the Inspiration4 mission before them, Wang and his crewmates will fly in a Crew Dragon that will give them a picture-window view of Earth below and deep space beyond.
“Throughout the 3-to-5-day mission, the crew plans to observe Earth’s polar regions through Dragon’s cupola at an altitude of 425-450 km [249 to 264 miles], leveraging insight from space physicists and citizen scientists to study unusual light emissions resembling auroras,” SpaceX wrote in the mission description.
“The crew will study green fragments and mauve ribbons of continuous emissions comparable to the phenomenon known as STEVE (Strong Thermal Emission Velocity Enhancement), which has been measured at an altitude of approximately 400-500 km [249 to 311 miles] above Earth’s atmosphere,” the company added.
Not only will Fram2 be the first to explore the Earth’s polar regions, but the crew will also capture the first-ever X-ray image of a human in space as part of their study on how spaceflight affects the human body, according to SpaceX.
To date, no astronauts or cosmonauts have ever viewed the planet from the vantage point of a polar orbit, one tilted, or inclined, 90 degrees to the equator. Typically, such orbits are favored by spy satellites, weather stations, and commercial photo-reconnaissance satellites because they fly over the entire planet as it rotates beneath them.
The International Space Station never flies beyond 51.6 degrees north and south latitude, which means that “the North and South Poles are invisible to astronauts on the International Space Station, as well as to all previous human spaceflight missions except for the Apollo lunar missions but only from far away,” the Fram2 website says. “This new flight trajectory will unlock new possibilities for human spaceflight.”
SpaceX has already launched 13 piloted missions that have carried 50 astronauts, cosmonauts, and private citizens to orbit in nine NASA flights to the space station, three commercial visits to the lab, and the Inspiration4 mission chartered by Isaacman.
Fram2 will be SpaceX’s sixth private astronaut mission.
