Blockchain entrepreneur, film director, polar adventurer and robotics researcher will fly around Earth’s poles aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule by the end of the year, becoming the first humans to observe ice sheets and polar environments from orbit. SpaceX is planning to become a company announced Monday.
The historic flight, which will launch from Kennedy Space Center in Florida, will be carried out by Chun, the wealthy Bitcoin pioneer who founded f2pool and stakefish, “one of the largest Bitcoin mining pools and Ethereum staking providers.” Mr. Wang will be in command, the crew’s website states.
space x
“Through this mission, Mr. Wang will highlight the exploration spirit of the crew, bring wonder and curiosity to more people, and highlight how technology can help push the limits of Earth exploration through the mission’s research. “We aim to do so,” SpaceX said on its website. .
Wang’s crew includes Norwegian cinematographer Jannicke Mikkelsen, Australian adventurer Eric Phillips, and German robotics researcher Lavea Rogge. All four are interested in the polar environment and plan to conduct related research and take photographs from orbit.
The mission, known as “Fram2” in honor of the Norwegian ship used to explore both the Arctic and Antarctic regions, will last three to five days and fly at altitudes of approximately 425 to 280 miles.
“This seems like a cool, well-conceived mission. We wish @framonauts every success on this epic exploration adventure!” Jared Isaacman, the billionaire philanthropist who planned the first civilian SpaceX mission he tweeted. inspiration 4 — and someone is scheduled to take off on the second flight, Polaris Dawn, later this month.
The flight “shows what commercial missions can accomplish thanks to @SpaceX’s reusability and NASA’s vision with the Commercial Crew Program,” Isaacman said. “Everything is just one small step towards opening the door to the last great frontier.”
As with previous Inspiration 4 missions, Wang and his crew will fly in a Crew Dragon with a transparent cupola, giving them a window-like view of Earth below and deep space beyond.
No astronaut or cosmonaut has ever seen the Earth from a vantage point in a polar orbit tilted 90 degrees to the equator. Such orbits are favored by spy satellites, weather observatories, and commercial photo reconnaissance satellites because they fly over the entire planet while rotating beneath it.
The highest inclination record for manned flight was set in the early 1960s by the Soviet Vostok spacecraft, which was launched into an orbit with an inclination of 65 degrees. The U.S. record was set by a Space Shuttle mission launched in 1990 that carried out a classified military mission in an orbit tilted 62 degrees to the equator.
The International Space Station will never fly beyond 51.6 degrees north or 51.6 degrees south. NASA had planned to launch a space shuttle on a secret military mission near the pole in 1986, but the flight was canceled after the Challenger disaster.
“The North and South poles are only visible from a distance for all previous human spaceflight missions, except for astronauts on the International Space Station and the Apollo Lunar Missions,” Fram2’s website states. “This new flight trajectory will unlock new possibilities for human spaceflight.”
SpaceX has launched 13 crewed missions carrying 50 astronauts, cosmonauts, and civilians, nine flights to the space station with NASA, three commercial visits to laboratories, and Conducted the Inspiration 4 mission chartered by Isaacman.
Isaacman and his three crew members are scheduled to take off on another fully commercial flight on August 26, this time marking the first commercial spacewalk. NASA plans to launch the next Crew Dragon flight to the space station around September 24th.
more
