SpaceX FRAM2 crews splatter off the coast of California and close historic trip around the Earth’s poles

A wealthy Bitcoin entrepreneur and three fellow adventurers returned to Earth on Friday on a SpaceX Crew Dragon Capsule, splattering into the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Southern California, closing the first crew around the Earth’s poles.

Three and a half days later It will start on Monday From the Kennedy Space Center, and after 55 passes to the Arctic and Antarctic, the crew dragon “Resilience” fired a brake rocket at 11:26am, knocking it back into an identifiable atmosphere about 25 minutes later.

With heat resistant temperatures up to 3,500 degrees Fahrenheit, the spacecraft rapidly slowed down, deploying four large red and white parachutes, settling on a 16 mph splashdown on the target at 12:19pm

The SpaceX crew was deployed nearby and ran to the gently bobed capsule and equipped it for a lift to the company’s recovery ship Shannon.

In the first test of this kind, the crew showed the ability to leave the craft themselves and escape the crew’s dragon without the help of the recovery crew.

Unlike Crew members returned from a long flight Mission Commander Chun Wang and his three companions were able to lift emergency equipment up from the hatch before climbing up to the International Space Station, which was brought from the capsule.

Three and a half days later, they moved a bit on ginger, but Chun, Norwegian cinematographer Jannick Mikkelsen, German robotics expert Laveer Lodge and Australian polar guide Eric Phillips greeted the supporters and were escorted by the recovery vessel for their first medical check, all smiling.

Chun is a Chinese-born citizen of Malta, living primarily in the extreme north of Norway, and most recently in Svalbad, a Norwegian archipelago in the Arctic Ocean, where he first met all the veterans of polar expeditions.

“We’ve met all in Subarbad and we love the ice,” Chun posted to X during the flight. “The mission was planned when I lived there. We fly through polar regions because on tracks like the ISS you can’t see where we live. From this perspective, the mission achieved that goal perfectly.”

Chun said he planned to keep an eye on the Antarctic research station before the launch, but Mikkelsen said during the flight “unlike previously expected, it is pure white only from 460 km from above, and human activity is invisible.”

Neither Chun nor his crew are licensed pilots. Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin has been released The non-pilot crew has not flew into orbit to the edge of space with a new Shepherd flight in land orbit without at least one member with aviation expertise or astronaut experience.

However, the crew’s dragons are highly automated and can be controlled from the ground if necessary. SpaceX saw the FRAM2 flight as a stepping stone for more non-experts to open doors for flying into orbit.

Avid world traveler and polar visitors, Chun has privately paid SpaceX for charter resilience to Polar Orbit, SpaceX’s third privately funded private space tourism flight.

The mission was named FRAM2 in honor of a 19th century sailing ship (Flam or “forward” in Norway) that carried Arctic explorers to the poles. A small piece of the original ship’s teak deck was carried into space on a crew dragon.

“My own journey has been shaped by lifelong curiosity and the appeal of pushing boundaries,” Chun said before the launch. “As a child, I was staring at the blank space at the bottom of the world map, wondering what was there.

“In the end, in 2021, I finally took me across the continent and across the southernmost tip of the Earth. In 2023, it’s just the Arctic. …FRAM2 doesn’t just go to space. It’s about pushing boundaries and sharing knowledge…and hope that our mission will inspire more future people.”

The crew had planned to carry out 22 experiments, ranging from filming the aurora display from orbit to testing compact exercise equipment used in small spacecraft, growing oyster mushrooms with microgravity and ingesting the first X-rays in space.

In addition to three high-end professional cameras, the crew is equipped with multiple laptops and tablets, a Ham Radio, and even an X-ray generator. This is used to capture the first X-ray image of the human body in space.

During the flight, the crew posted an epic video containing a time-lapse view of the Earth below as the crew sailed to the Arctic to the Antarctic and made a trip to one pole every 46 minutes.

“We are proud to be able to bring some incredible cameras and lenses into space, where humans from space capture the first images of the Arctic and Antarctica,” Mikkelsen posted on X.

Another video shows the entire state of Florida and the southeastern United States. Zooming into the Kennedy Space Center, Chun was amazed, “We have our launchpad. Ah, God!”

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