Elon Musk’s SpaceX has announced plans to launch the first-ever crewed mission to explore Earth’s polar orbit by the end of this year. This mission, named Fram2 after the first ship to ferry explorers to the Arctic and Antarctic regions, will be a significant milestone in private spaceflight, as no one else has successfully flown over the Earth’s polar regions before.
SpaceX is set to make history with its first mission to polar orbit.
Elon musk
Fram2 is SpaceX’s sixth commercial astronaut mission, and it will see a crew of four astronauts aboard the Dragon capsule, which will be launched into polar orbit by the Falcon 9 rocket. According to a blog post by SpaceX on August 12, the mission is expected to last three to five days, with Florida selected as the launch site.
Who will be onboard the spaceflight?
Another reason why the announcement of SpaceX’s Fram2 has grabbed headlines is because the four astronauts who will be onboard the spacecraft have reportedly never been to space before.
The commander of the Fram2 mission will be Chun Wang, a cryptocurrency entrepreneur from Malta who has founded two Bitcoin mining companies. He will be accompanied by Jannicke Mikkelsen, a Norwegian cinematographer; Rabea Rogge, a robotics engineer from Germany, and Eric Philips, a polar explorer from Australia, who will also be piloting the spacecraft.
