A Chinese-born bitcoin entrepreneur has lead the first human polar orbit mission aboard SpaceX's Crew Dragon Resilience.
A privately chartered SpaceX mission carrying four international adventurers successfully launched on March 31, 2025, marking the first human spaceflight to orbit Earth's poles, CBS News reports.
The Falcon rocket, lifting off from Nasa’s Kennedy Space Center, charted a southerly course over the Atlantic, a trajectory unlike any taken in over six decades of space travel (The Independent).
After successful separation from the first stage, which landed on a drone ship, the Crew Dragon was released to fly on its own. Bill Gerstenmaier, a senior manager at SpaceX and former NASA director of space operations, radioed the crew: "On behalf of the SpaceX team, we're honoured to deliver you safely to your polar orbit. Enjoy the views of the poles, send us some pictures. Our hearts and our minds will be flying with you... Have a great flight."
Mission commander Chun Wang, a Chinese-born citizen of Malta who lives primarily in northern Norway, paid an undisclosed amount to charter the Crew Dragon Resilience for the journey. This represents SpaceX's third privately funded civilian space tourism flight.
"My own journey has been shaped by lifelong curiosity and a fascination with pushing boundaries," Wang told reporters before launch (CBS News). "As a kid, I used to stare at a blank white space at the bottom of a world map and wonder what's out there."
Wang publicly acknowledged being inspired by previous private space missions. "I owe my inspiration to Jared," Wang posted on social media platform X, referring to entrepreneur Jared Isaacman, who chartered SpaceX's first two commercial missions. "If it weren't for @yousuckMZ and @rookisaacman taking the first step, I would have never had the courage to book an entire spaceship and bring along three people I had only met once before."
Wang named the mission "Fram2" after the 19th century Norwegian sailing ship that carried Arctic pioneers to polar regions in the 1800s. A small piece of the original Fram's teak decking is aboard the spacecraft.
After the successful launch, SpaceX's launch director radioed the crew: "Pretty wild to see the Fram adventurers sailing to the poles once again, over 130 years from (the original ship's) christening. This time, though, with Starlink. Cheers."
The crew includes Norwegian cinematographer Jannicke Mikkelsen as vehicle commander, German roboticist Rabea Rogge as mission pilot, and Australian Eric Philips, a professional polar tour guide and veteran of some 30 expeditions to the North and South poles, serving as medical officer.
Unlike previous orbital missions, none of the Fram2 crew are licensed pilots. SpaceX states this mission will help refine training procedures to make spaceflight more accessible to non-professionals.
The crew plans to conduct 22 experiments during their flight, including filming auroral displays from orbit, testing compact exercise equipment, growing oyster mushrooms in microgravity and taking the first X-rays in space.
The 273-mile-high orbit will allow 55 passes above the poles between launch and the planned splashdown on Friday in the Pacific Ocean off the southern California coast. The mission is expected to last three days and 14 hours.
As reported by Wikipedia, Crew Dragon Resilience is the second operational Crew Dragon reusable spacecraft manufactured and operated by SpaceX, after Endeavour. It first launched on November 16, 2020 to the International Space Station (ISS) on the SpaceX Crew-1 mission, the first operational flight of NASA's Commercial Crew Program. It was subsequently used for Inspiration4 in 2021, the first private spaceflight mission with an all-civilian crew, and the Polaris Dawn mission in September 2024.
by Olivia Palamountain | GLOBETRENDER