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3w ago

SpaceX Prepares for Historic Fram2 Polar Orbit Mission

The privately funded mission, set to launch March 31, will feature groundbreaking experiments and the first human spaceflight over Earth's polar regions.

The Fram2 mission crew - including Eric Philips , Chun Wang, Eric Philips, Rabea Rogge and Jannicke Mikkelsen (left to right).
SpaceX’s Falcon 9 and Dragon sit on the launch pad in Florida, ahead of the Fram2 mission.
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon spacecraft set to carry the Fram2 mission are rolled out to the launchpad in Florida.
The Fram2 crew poses in this image provided by SpaceX. The group includes, from left, Eric Philips, a polar guide from Australia; Rabea Rogge, a robotics researcher from Germany; Norwegian filmmaker Jannicke Mikkelsen; and Chun Wang, a Chinese-born bitcoin investor who is paying for the whole spaceflight.

Overview

  • Fram2 will launch aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule on a Falcon 9 rocket from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, with a window opening at 9:46 pm EDT on March 31.
  • The mission includes four civilian astronauts—Chun Wang, Jannicke Mikkelsen, Rabea Rogge, and Eric Philps—who trained for eight months, including wilderness simulations in Alaska.
  • Key experiments include the first X-ray taken in space and mushroom cultivation in microgravity, aimed at supporting future long-duration space travel to Mars.
  • Fram2 marks the first human orbital flight directly over Earth's polar regions, an area previously unexplored by astronauts in this way.
  • The mission will also study astronauts' post-spaceflight capabilities by having the crew attempt to exit the spacecraft without medical assistance upon return.