SpaceX video shows views of Earth's poles during crypto billionaire-funded spaceflight
Shared early Tuesday morning on X, Elon Musk's social media platform, the brief video was captured on a SpaceX Dragon vehicle not long after Fram2 launched from Florida.
A group of astronauts whizzing around Earth from orbit are getting some pretty spectacular views of our planet's poles – and SpaceX is sharing a look.
Elon Musk's commercial spaceflight company, which supplied the rocket and spacecraft for a mission known as Fram2, posted a video providing a glimpse of what the spacefarers are seeing from 267 miles above ground.
Shared early Tuesday morning on X, Musk's social media platform, the brief video was captured on a SpaceX Dragon vehicle not long after the crew of four launched from Florida. The Fram2 mission, financed and led by cryptocurrency billionaire Chun Wang, has since Monday night been soaring well above the Kármán Line – the 62-mile-high internationally recognized boundary of outer space.
The four international astronauts are on a 3-5 day mission to become the first humans to complete a spaceflight over both of Earth's North and South poles. Along the way, they'll participate in multiple experiments to test how spaceflight affect the human body.
SpaceX shares video of Fram2 spaceflight
The mission got off the ground Monday night with the launch of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral.
After separating from the rocket, a SpaceX Dragon capsule carrying the four private astronauts has been using its own thrusters to zoom from pole to pole.
Early Tuesday morning, SpaceX shared a video captured from the Dragon's domed cupola window overlooking a snow-covered area of Earth's poles. While the video does not specify whether it's one or both poles shown, the launch blasted the Dragon on a southern trajectory.
What is Fram2?
Fram2 is under the command of Malta-based entrepreneur Chun Wang, who paid an undisclosed amount of money to bankroll the mission with SpaceX. Born in China, Wang built his fortune with Bitcoin mining pools.
The three other spacefarers joining Wang are Norwegian filmmaker Jannicke Mikkelsen, German robotics researcher Rabea Rogge and Australian adventurer Eric Philips.
Fram2, named for a Norwegian ship that traversed the North and South poles at the turn of the 20th century, is sending the astronauts on a pioneering voyage circling Earth's poles from orbit. While in orbit, the crew plans to observe Earth’s polar regions from about 267 miles above the ground – an altitude that will allow the Dragon to fly from the North Pole to the South Pole in just more than 46 minutes.
Wang and his crew will also conduct 22 research experiments related to human physiology in orbit that will provide insights for future long-duration missions deep into the cosmos.
The Fram2 astronauts are due to spend up to five days in orbit before landing later this week off the coast of California.
Eric Lagatta covers breaking and trending news for Paste BN. Reach him at elagatta@gannett.com