A blockchain entrepreneur, filmmaker, polar adventurer, and robotics researcher plans to fly around Earth’s poles aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule by the end of the year, the first humans to explore the ice caps and extreme polar environments from SpaceX’s orbit. announced Monday.
The historic flight, launched from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, will be commanded by Chun Wang, a wealthy Bitcoin pioneer who founded f2pool and Stakefish, “which are among the largest Bitcoin mining pools and Ethereum staking providers,” the crew’s online page says. .
“Wang intends to use the project to showcase the crew’s spirit of exploration, bring a sense of wonder and interest to the general public, and show how the generation can overcome the barriers of space exploration. Earth and through the project’s research “SpaceX said on its website.
Wang’s teammates are Norwegian cinematographer Jannicke Mikkelsen, Australian adventurer Eric Philips and Rabea Rogge, a German robotics specialist. All four are interested in extreme polar environments and plan to take similar photographs from orbit.
The mission, known as “Fram2” after a Norwegian shipment used to explore the Arctic and Antarctic regions, will last 3 to days and fly at altitudes between 265 and 280 miles.
“Sounds like a cool, well-thought-out project. Wishing you @framonauts on this epic exploration adventure!” tweeted Jared Isaacman, the billionaire philanthropist who mapped SpaceX’s first personal project, Inspiration4, and plans to take off. for a second flight, Polaris Dawn, later this month.
The flights “show what advertising missions can do through @SpaceX reuse and NASA’s vision with the Commercial Crew Program,” Isaacman said. “These are just small steps to unlock the last wonderful frontier. “
Like the previous Inspiration4 project, Wang and his teammates will fly in a Crew Dragon provided with a transparent dome that will give them a panoramic view of the Earth below and the deep area beyond.
No astronaut or cosmonaut has ever observed the Earth from the point of view of a polar orbit, susceptible to or inclined 90 degrees with respect to the equator. These orbits are favored by spy satellites, weather stations, and advertising photo reconnaissance satellites because they fly over the entire planet as it rotates beneath them.
The maximum inclination record for manned flights was set in the early 1960s by the Soviet Vostok spacecraft introduced into susceptible orbits of 65 degrees. The record EE. UU. se set by a space round-trip project introduced in 1990 that flew a classified military project in a susceptible orbit at 62 degrees from the equator.
The International Space Station never flies beyond 51. 6 degrees north and south latitude. NASA had planned to free up a round-trip space in a classified military project around the poles in 1986, but the flight was canceled following the Challenger disaster.
“The North and South poles are invisible to astronauts on the International Space Station, as well as to all past manned space missions, to the Apollo lunar missions, but only from afar,” says the Fram2 website. “This new flight route will open up new possibilities for human aerial flight. “
SpaceX presented thirteen pilot projects with 50 astronauts, cosmonauts and private citizens in orbit on nine NASA flights to the space station, three publicity visits to the laboratory and the Inspiration4 project chartered by Isaacman.
Isaacman and three crewmates plan to blast off Aug. 26 on a fully hype flight, this one that will include the first civilian spacewalks. NASA plans to launch its next Crew Dragon flight to the local station around Sept. 24.