A SpaceX mission planned for later this year will send a crew of four, including ExplorersWeb contributor Eric Philips, into orbit. The spaceflight will mark the first-ever crewed mission over the Poles.
Fram2
The Fram2 mission is named after the famous polar ship, the Fram, captained by the great Norwegian explorers Fridtjof Nansen, Otto Sverdrup, and Roald Amundsen between 1892 and 1912.
Nineteenth-century polar expeditions were undoubtedly expensive — Sverdrup’s four-year expedition aboard the Fram cost about $2 million in today’s dollars — but Fram2 certainly raises the bar. Though SpaceX does not publicly list prices, NASA has “previously disclosed it pays about $55 million per seat” to fly astronauts with the company, according to CNBC.
This would put a crewed mission at more than $200 million. Incredibly, cryptocurrency entrepreneur Chun Wang is privately funding Fram2. Born and raised in China, SpaceX describes Wang as an “entrepreneur and adventurer from Malta,” after he received Malta citizenship late last year.
Wang has assembled a team of three to join him for the three to five-day mission. Norwegian filmmaker Jannicke Mikkelsen will serve as vehicle commander, Eric Philips of Australia will be the vehicle pilot, and German researcher Rabea Rogge will be the mission specialist. Wang told CNBC that he first met Mikkelsen, Rogge, and Philips while living in Longyearbyen on Svalbard.
A polar first
Flying at an altitude of 430 to 450 kilometers, their polar orbit will require more juice than a typical orbit because the spacecraft can’t use the Earth’s rotation to boost velocity. This added energy cost means that previous polar orbits were unmanned and primarily used for military surveillance.
The Fram2 crew plans to study “unusual light emissions resembling auroras” above the Poles and to capture the first human X-ray images in space.
SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule ‘Endurance’ in 2022. Photo: NASA
The team arrived at the SpaceX training facility in Los Angeles this week. The expedition, using SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon capsule (aptly named Endurance after Ernest Shackleton’s ship), will launch late this year at the earliest.
