On April 1, Elon Musk’s aerospace company SpaceX launched the Crew Dragon spacecraft with four pilots on board. The Fram2 mission will fly over the Earth’s poles for the first time in history, informs SpaceX press office.
The Fram2 mission launched from the company’s pad at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida around 9:46 p.m. local time. There are four astronauts on board the ship: cryptocurrency billionaire Chun Wang of Chinese origin, German Rabea Rogge – Germany’s first female cosmonaut, Australian researcher Eric Phillips and Norwegian director Yannick Mikkelsen. For all crew members, this is the first flight into space.
The crew is expected to remain in orbit for three to five days, after which the capsule will land in waters off the coast of California.
The main tasks of the Fram2 mission include surveying the Earth’s polar regions from Earth orbit, as well as performing a number of scientific experiments. In particular, it is planned to collect data on the radiation background in the region of the poles, to study the aurora borealis and geomagnetic phenomena, as well as to conduct medical experiments, including the first X-ray image of a person in space.
The name of the Fram2 mission comes from the Norwegian polar schooner Fram, which was built specifically for expeditions to polar latitudes. The ship made three remarkable voyages to the Arctic and Antarctic. The most famous was the 1911 expedition led by Roald Amundsen, during which the South Pole was reached for the first time in history.
Photo: foxtv.com
