(Bloomberg) — Elon Musk’s SpaceX is set to launch the first human spaceflight mission to fly over the Earth’s polar regions, funded and commanded by cryptocurrency investor Chun Wang.
The mission, called Fram2, after a Norwegian polar expedition ship that operated in the late 1800s and early 1900s, is set to launch on a Falcon 9 rocket from Florida at 9:46 p.m. local time on Monday, carrying a crew of four private astronauts.
Over the course of three to five days, they will fly over and observe Earth’s North and South Poles and conduct research on the impact of spaceflight on human health.
“My own journey has been shaped by lifelong curiosity and a fascination with pushing boundaries,” Wang said during a livestreamed mission overview on X Friday. “As a kid, I used to stare at the blank white space at the bottom of the world map, wondering what was out there.”
The closest any astronaut has come before to flying over the poles occurred during the early Soviet spaceflight missions that carried cosmonauts like Yuri Gagarin, according to Jon Edwards, a vice president at SpaceX.
Wang, who was born in China but in 2023 posted on social media about becoming a citizen of Malta, co-founded one of the biggest Bitcoin mining pools, F2Pool, in 2013. Joining him will be Norwegian director and cinematographer Jannicke Mikkelsen, Australian adventurer Eric Philips and German graduate student Rabea Rogge, all of whom are first-time astronauts.
“I’m looking forward to being the first human in history to be able to point my camera at the North Pole and South Pole from space,” Mikkelsen said.
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The mission adds to the roster of more than a dozen human spaceflight missions by SpaceX, most of them for NASA. In addition to taking astronauts to and from the International Space Station, the Musk-led company has conducted two missions for billionaire Jared Isaacman, President Donald Trump’s nominee for NASA administrator.
Following the mission, the crew will splashdown off the West Coast of the United States.
“Each one of these missions is a small step towards making spaceflight more like easier air travel, where anyone can fly,” Jessica Jensen, vice president of customer operations and integration at SpaceX, said.
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