WASHINGTON – A Chinese-born cryptocurrency entrepreneur has funded a SpaceX Crew Dragon mission that will be the first manned flight over Earth’s poles.
SpaceX announced on August 12 that it will launch a private astronaut mission called Fram2 in late 2024. The Crew Dragon will launch from Florida into a polar orbit and fly at an altitude of 425 to 450 kilometers during the three- to five-day mission. Never before has a crewed mission flown in a polar orbit, with the highest inclination being about 65 degrees.
Fram2 is commanded by Chun Wang, who SpaceX describes as just an “entrepreneur and adventurer from Malta.” Wang has worked in the cryptocurrency space for more than a decade and founded Bitcoin mining company F2pool and Stakefish, a validator for various crypto protocols.
Wang is not a native of Malta, but was born and raised in China before later moving to South Korea. He announced on social media in August 2023 He became a Maltese citizen, but did not explain why. Malta offers several ways to obtain citizenship, including residency in the country and investment, and as part of the European Union, Malta can offer more opportunities for visa-free international travel.
Wang is a frequent traveler who documents his flights around the world on social media, including trips to Florida and Texas to witness SpaceX launches. He also used his account to drop hints about his spaceflight plans.
“Endurance is coming back to Earth. This spacecraft was named in part in honor of Sir Ernest Shackleton’s Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition of 1914-1917. It was destined for the poles. Should we install a dome on it too?” he asked. published in March, referring to the return of the Crew Dragon spacecraft Endeavour to Earth at the end of the Crew-7 mission. Its Fram2 mission will reportedly use Endurance, with the same dome used on the Inspiration4 mission in 2021 instead of a docking port.
Wang will be joined on the mission by Jannicke Mikkelsen of Norway as vehicle commander, Eric Philips of Australia as vehicle pilot and Rabea Rogge of Germany as mission specialist. SpaceX has not previously used the designation “vehicle commander” on Crew Dragon missions, and the difference between that role and that of Wang’s mission commander is not clear.
SpaceX said the crew will study the polar regions during the mission and “leverage insights from space physicists and citizen scientists to investigate unusual light emissions that resemble auroras,” a phenomenon called Strong Thermal Emission Velocity Enhancement (STEVE), which produces green and purple bands of light from ribbons of plasma at altitudes similar to Fram2.
One space scientist expressed skepticism that the mission would be able to collect much data on STEVE or other space weather phenomena, given that the mission is short-lived and the crew has little time for such studies among other activities. The scientist estimated that for the same cost as Fram2, a small satellite mission could be built and launched dedicated exclusively to studying STEVE and would collect data for years.
SpaceX said the Fram2 crew will also carry out other activities during the mission that focus on the impact of space on the human body. Among other things, they will take the first X-ray images of a human in space. “All of this will help develop the tools needed to prepare humanity for future long-term space flights.”
If the mission launches this year, it would be SpaceX’s third private astronaut mission of 2024. The company launched the Ax-3 mission for Axiom Space to the International Space Station in January, and the long-delayed Polaris Dawn private astronaut mission is now scheduled to launch as early as August 26.
Another private astronaut mission, Axiom Space’s Ax-4, was scheduled to launch later this year. NASA announced on August 9 that the mission had been pushed back to spring 2025 at the earliest, but gave no reason for the delay. Industry sources had said in the weeks leading up to the announcement that Ax-4 was unlikely to fly before early 2025.
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