WASHINGTON — A Chinese-born cryptocurrency entrepreneur has funded a SpaceX Crew Dragon mission that will be the first human flight to go over the Earth’s poles.
SpaceX announced Aug. 12 that it will launch a private astronaut mission called Fram2 as soon as late 2024. The Crew Dragon will launch into a polar orbit from Florida, flying at an altitude of 425 to 450 kilometers during a mission lasting three to five days. No crewed mission has flown in a polar orbit before, with the highest inclination being about 65 degrees.
Fram2 will be commanded by Chun Wang, which SpaceX’s statement identified as only an “entrepreneur and adventurer from Malta.” Wang has worked in the cryptocurrency field for more than a decade, founding the bitcoin mining company F2pool and Stakefish, a validator for various crypto protocols.
Wang is also not a native of Malta, having been born and raised in China, later moving to South Korea. He announced on social media in August 2023 he had become a citizen of Malta, but did not explain why. Malta offers several paths for citizenship, including residency in the country and through investment, and Malta, as part of the European Union, can offer greater options for visa-free international travel.
Wang is an extensive traveler, documenting his flights around the world on social media. That has included 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 spaceship was named in part in honor of Sir Ernest Shackleton’s Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition from 1914 to 1917. It was destined for the poles. Should we also install a cupola on top of it?” he posted in March, referencing the return to Earth of the Crew Dragon spacecraft Endeavour at the end of the Crew-7 mission. His Fram2 mission will reportedly use Endurance, with the same cupola that was flown on the Inspiration4 mission in 2021 in lieu of a docking port.
Joining Wang on the mission will be Jannicke Mikkelsen of Norway, who will be vehicle commander; Eric Philips of Australia as vehicle pilot; and Rabea Rogge of Germany as mission specialist. SpaceX has previously not used the designation of “vehicle commander” on Crew Dragon missions, and it is not clear the difference between that role and that of Wang mission commander.
SpaceX said the crew will study the polar regions during the mission, “leveraging insight from space physicists and citizen scientists to study unusual light emissions resembling auroras.” That is a reference to a phenomenon known as Strong Thermal Emission Velocity Enhancement, or STEVE, that creates ribbons of green and purple light from ribbons of plasma at altitudes similar to where Fram2 will fly.
One space scientist, speaking on background, was skeptical that the mission would be able to collect much data on STEVE or other space weather phenomena, given the mission’s short duration and limited time the crew will have for such studies while conducting other activities. For the same cost as Fram2, the scientist estimated that a small satellite mission devoted to studying STEVE could be built and launched, collecting data for years.
The Fram2 crew will perform other activities during the mission, SpaceX said, focused on how space affects the human body, including taking the first human X-ray images in space, “all of which will help in the development of tools needed to prepare humanity for future long-duration spaceflight.”
If the mission does launch this year, it will be the third private astronaut mission launched by SpaceX in 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 for launch as soon as Aug. 26.
Another private astronaut mission, Axiom Space’s Ax-4, was scheduled to launch late this year. However, NASA announced Aug. 9 that the mission has been delayed to no earlier than the spring of 2025, but did not give a reason for the delay. Industry sources had said in the weeks leading up to the announcement that Ax-4 was unlikely to fly until at least early 2025.
