“Fram2” named after the famous Norwegian ship built in the 19th century for Arctic and Antarctic expeditions, the mission will conduct a variety of experiments, including the first X-ray captured in space and the microgravity mushroom growing. Future long-term space missions to Mars are anticipated to benefit from the study.
Astronauts left NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 9:46 p.m. on Monday in a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule which was launched by a Falcon 9 rocket. When the ship started towards the North and South Poles of Earth, cheers crowded in the control room as the enormous rocket shot into orbit, illuminating the night sky and got up in an orange pillar of fire.
Chun Wang, the mission commander, said prior to the launch, “We hope to return with new data and information to promote space exploration’s long-term goals in the same pioneering spirit as early polar explorers.“
Wang, a Chinese Maltese explorer and co-founder of the cryptocurrency companies f2pool and skatefish, selected the other crew members: Australian polar explorer Eric Philips, mission specialist and medical officer; Norwegian film director Jannicke Mikkelsen; German robotics researcher Rabea Rogge; and mission pilot Rabea Rogge.
For the roughly four-day journey, the team trained for eight months, including a wilderness adventure in Alaska to mimic living in cramped quarters under extreme circumstances.
To understand how well astronauts can perform daily tasks after they have undergone spaceflight they will attempt to exit the vessel without additional medical care in an attempt after the astronauts return to Earth.
Apart from the Apollo missions to the Moon, the astronauts, including those on the ISS, have never been able to view Earth’s polar regions. They did not even fly over the Earth’s poles on Apollo.
There have been five commercial SpaceX astronaut missions so far: three with Axiom Space to the ISS, and two Earth-orbiting fly-away free-flyers. They started with the first of them, Inspiration4, in 2021, followed by Polaris Dawn, which included the first private astronaut spacewalk.
E-payments billionaire Jared Isaacman, who has been nominated by President Donald Trump to be the next head of NASA, chartered both free-flying trips. Isaacman is also connected to Elon Musk, the CEO of SpaceX.
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