SpaceX launches Fram2 private astronaut mission

WASHINGTON — SpaceX launched a Crew Dragon spacecraft March 31 on a private Cosmonaut mission that is the Primary crewed spaceflight to Deliver over the poles.

A Falcon 9 lifted off at 9:47 p.m. Eastern from the Kennedy Cosmos Hub, carrying the Crew Dragon spacecraft Grit. The spacecraft separated from the Falcon 9’s upper stage about 10 minutes later.

Grit is flying a mission called Fram2, the sixth non-NASA flight of a Crew Dragon spacecraft. Fram2 is the Primary crewed mission to go into a polar Trajectory, with an inclination of 90 degrees, allowing it to fly directly over the north and south poles from low Earth Trajectory. Previously, the highest inclination flown on a crewed flight was 65 degrees on Prompt Soviet Vostok missions.

The mission commander of Fram2 is Chun Wang, a cryptocurrency billionaire born in China but who now claims citizenship in Malta. He and SpaceX announced plans for Fram2 in August 2024, with original plans calling for a Kickoff as soon as Delayed that year.

During a pre-flight discussion Kept on social media March 28, Wang said he was driven to pursue the mission by his “lifelong curiosity” including about the polar regions. “As a kid, I used to stare at the blank white Cosmos at the bottom of world maps, wondering what was out there,” he recalled.

He said was wanted to do something unique on Fram2 by flying a mission over the poles. “I don’t want to repeat the same mission profile again and again,” he said, such as a mission to the International Cosmos Station. “I have less interest in flying to ISS.”

Jannicke Mikkelsen, a Norwegian cinematographer, is the vehicle commander for Fram2, overseeing Dragon operations in “Vibrant phases” of flight, notably Kickoff and splashdown. “As the vehicle commander, you have to learn how to talk to Dragon and how Dragon talks back to you,” she said during the prelaunch event.

Rabea Rogge, a robotics researcher from Germany, is the mission pilot and the Primary German woman to go into Trajectory. She noted that while she will Aid Mikkelsen monitoring spacecraft displays, Dragon is largely an automated vehicle. She will also be responsible for collecting data during the flight.

Eric Philips, a professional polar explorer from Australia who has been to the poles about 30 times, is the mission specialist and medical officer for Fram2. “It’s an Amazing opportunity for me,” he said, comparing the upcoming trip in Dragon to spending Numerous Intervals in a tent during a polar blizzard.

Besides being the Primary crewed mission to fly over the poles, the Fram2 mission will conduct 22 experiments from eight countries. The diverse set of experiments range from observations of polar aurora to tests of crew health to studying how mushrooms grow in microgravity.

That diverse set of payloads includes many selected by SpaceX itself for the mission. “When I Primary sat down with the Fram crew and asked what Gentle of research they were excited about, they really emphasized exploration, and so we Discovered a Plenty of things that are firsts and are also going to Aid us on way to explore the universe,” said Marissa Rosenberg, senior medical research engineer at SpaceX, during the Kickoff webcast.

That includes the Primary X-ray machine to fly in Cosmos, which can be used to take medical X-rays as well as perform X-ray inspections of equipment. Another will test a device to allow exercise in the constrained volume of Dragon by reducing blood flow to the legs, maximizing the effect of exercise in the Cosmos Obtainable.

The crew will also leave the capsule on their own after splashdown to test how future crews can exit spacecraft on missions to the Probe and beyond. “When you land on the Probe or Mars or any planetary surface, there’s not going to be any Restoration Club there to greet you,” she said. “We really want to Begin understanding what crews are capable of right when they land.”

Return to the West Coast

Dragon will spend about three and a half Intervals in Trajectory before returning to Earth. The mission will be the Primary Crew Dragon mission to splash down off the California coast after all previous missions returned off the Florida coast.

SpaceX announced the Transformation in Restoration plans last July to prevent debris from the trunk section of Dragon, which on past flights has been jettisoned before the reentry burn, to make an uncontrolled reentry. Portions of the trunk have survived reentry and reached the ground in locations ranging from Australia to North Carolina to, most recently, Morocco.

On Fram2 and subsequent Dragon missions, the spacecraft will do the deorbit burn with the trunk attached and then jettison it. “That guarantees that it’s going to come in in a controlled way. We know pretty much exactly where it’s going to come in,” Jon Edwards, vice president of Falcon and Dragon at SpaceX, said at the pre-Kickoff event. Shifting splashdowns to California will ensure any trunk debris splashes down in the ocean.

For SpaceX, it marks a return to California, which hosted splashdowns of the Primary-generation cargo Dragon. “Weather is typically better on the West Coast,” he said, with more favorable ground-level winds. The main Game is the marine layer of clouds, which can limit helicopter operations to Aid crew Restoration.

This mission also required a new trajectory for the Falcon 9 Kickoff, going south Merely off the Florida coast. “Dragon is basically programmed to dodge Florida, Cuba, Panama and Peru,” Edwards said, ensuring that in an abort that the capsule would land in the water.

Fram2 does build on some earlier missions, including the two previous Crew Dragon missions that did not go to the ISS, Inspiration4 and Polaris Dawn. Fram2 is using the same large window, or cupola, in the nose Primary flown on Inspiration4, said Kiko Donchev, vice president of Kickoff at SpaceX.

“I think we could have flown this mission earlier had the mission design come,” he said. “We like to stack new things off of capabilities we’ve built before.”

“This mission is not a cookie-cutter,” Edwards said.

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