view looking down at polar ice from space out the window of a spacecraft, with a cupola on the craft visible in the foreground
The Fram2 mission captured this view of polar ice from orbit. SpaceX
SpaceX launched a crew of four private astronauts into space on Monday, on the first human mission to orbit on a trajectory that passes above both the Earth’s poles.
The people aboard the company’s Crew Dragon capsule include cryptocurrency entrepreneur Chun Wang of Malta, film director Jannicke Mikkelsen of Norway, robotics researcher Rabea Rogge of Germany and adventurer Eric Philips of Australia. The trip was financed by Wang, who paid an undisclosed amount of money to SpaceX.
Called the Fram2 mission—after the Fram, a Norwegian ship that explored the South Pole in the 20th century—the rocket took off from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, around 9:47 p.m. Eastern time March 31. Then, it did something out of the ordinary—it flew south.
an image of four astronauts in gear
The Fram2 crew are the first humans to be launched on a polar orbit. From left to right: Eric Philips, Rabea Rogge, Jannicke Mikkelsen and Chun Wang.
No previous crewed mission has taken this trajectory, which requires large amounts of power, leading to “a significant loss of performance for that launch vehicle in terms of how much mass it can put into orbit,” said Craig Kluever, an aerospace engineer at the University of Missouri, to Jackie Wattles at CNN last week. Despite these challenges, the rocket lifted off without issue.
Usually, launches from Kennedy Space Center fly east or northeast to avoid populated areas of Florida and Cuba. SpaceX said for this mission, it made modifications to the flight software that would allow the capsule to be moved away from those regions in the event of an emergency as it traveled south, writes Scott Neuman for NPR.
Upon reaching space, the private astronauts—all of whom are on their first space flight—had a bit of adjusting to do. “The first few hours in microgravity weren’t exactly comfortable. Space motion sickness hit all of us—we felt nauseous and ended up vomiting a couple of times,” Wang posted on social media. “We had a movie night watching our own launch and went to sleep a bit earlier than scheduled. ... By the second morning, I felt completely refreshed.”
During their three- to five-day trip, the Fram2 crew will conduct 22 science experiments that include taking the first X-ray of the human body in orbit and growing oyster mushrooms. On their first day in space, the team connected with ham radio enthusiasts in Europe and worked on a study about “how human cognition adapts to the spaceflight environment within the first few hours of reaching space,” per SpaceX.
The mission’s “new flight trajectory will unlock new possibilities for human spaceflight and provide a deeper understanding about our planet and its polar regions,” according to a statement from Fram2.
But scientists point out that most of the experiments on board don’t require a polar orbit, according to Qasim Nauman and Isabella Kwai of the New York Times, and the trip, some say, isn’t that scientifically remarkable.
“It’s run of the mill as far as I can tell,” says Bleddyn Bowen, a researcher of space politics at Durham University in England, to the New York Times.
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The polar orbit—which is a common course for satellites, but unprecedented for humans—might mostly serve to draw attention to the mission, per CNN, and it recognizes the crew’s interest in polar exploration.
“This is a private mission. You need something to say that’s different and exciting about it,” says Christopher Combs, an aerodynamics researcher at the University of Texas at San Antonio, to CNN. “It’s interesting that nobody’s ever actually done a true polar orbit, and it’s great that we’ve got commercial providers that are making space travel increasingly routine.”
He adds that the mission is “a notch above gimmick, but not exactly a groundbreaking milestone.”
The mission will end with a splashdown in the Pacific Ocean, which no human crew for SpaceX has done before. The company’s flights usually land off the coast of Florida, reports Josh Dinner for Space.com, but the company is moving its landings to the West Coast to minimize the odds of its space debris causing any damage.