SpaceX is to launch its first-ever crewed mission for a tour of Earth’s poles for four passengers, another milestone in space travel for tourists. The mission, called Fram2, will take off from a Florida launchpad in a 4.5-hour window that opens at 9:46 p.m. ET on Monday.
The voyage is sponsored by Malta crypto billionaire Chun Wang, who made his fortune from bitcoin mining. Wang will be joined by three polar researchers he met while making his Earth-based journeys: Norwegian movie director Jannicke Mikkelsen, German robotics scientist Rabea Rogge, and Australian adventurer Eric Philips. None of the crew members have ever been to space before.
Fram2 is named after a Norwegian ship that played a significant role in polar exploration during the early 20th century. The mission aims to walk in the footsteps of polar explorers while also exploring the boundaries of space travel. The flight will fly around the poles of Earth, something that has never been done before by human beings in space. This journey is more energy-intensive than other forms of space travel since it requires a path that reaches much farther than the equator, compared to the International Space Station, which has an orbit close to the equatorial plane.
The flight path will aim at a 90-degree angle, which is perpendicular to the equator. The path will see the crew pass over both the North and South poles of the world, something that has never been done before.
The crew will be away in space for three to five days, conducting research and providing valuable feedback for scientists. Their bodies will be checked to see how they handle weightlessness and motion sickness, a condition that most astronauts experience. The crew will return home after splashdown, landing off the coast of California.
The Fram2 mission is a breakthrough in space tourism, following previous SpaceX missions like the 2021 Inspiration4. It is a betrayal of the increasing potential for commercial space travel and the greater aspirations for space travel to new frontiers beyond Earth’s orbit.
