Living up to its name, SpaceX’s 2021 Inspiration4 mission prompted billionaire Chun Wang to hash out his own self-funded trip to space.
Inspiration4 was the brainchild of Jared Isaacman, the billionaire CEO of Shift4 payments who is now President Donald Trump’s nominee to run NASA.
Isaacman tapped Hayley Arceneux, a childhood cancer survivor and St. Jude physician assistant; Sian Procotor, a geologist and community college teacher with a PhD; and Chris Sembroski, an engineer and lifelong space fan who claimed his seat through an online raffle.
They crew of entirely first-time space fliers spent three days in orbit.
Isaacman then followed up Inspiration4 with Polaris Dawn, a flight he led last summer that flew into the radiation belts and included the first-ever commercial spacewalk. (Two SpaceX engineers and an Air Force veteran joined him for that mission.)
Now Fram2, will build on both Inspiration4 and Polaris Dawn, said Kiko Dontchev, SpaceX’s vice president of launch, during a virtual event on Friday.
“From a crew training perspective, we’ve really started to refine how we train for folks that have no traditional background in spaceflight to get ready for a mission,” he said.
While there are plenty of satellites orbiting around the Earth’s polar regions, humans have not flown such a flight path.
That means the poles have been difficult to observe with human eyes from space.
The frigid caps of our home planet are invisible to humans on board the International Space Station, for example, which orbits near Earth’s equatorial line.
Decades ago, however, there was another crewed mission that ventured closer than the others: a Soviet spaceflight called Vostok 6 in 1963.
However, Vostok 6 was flown at a 65-degree inclination, whereas Fram2 will aim for a 90-degree orientation, meaning it will fly perfectly perpendicular to the equator.
The nose cone, or the white cap that sits atop the gumdrop-shaped Crew Dragon capsule, just swung open.
On most SpaceX flights for astronauts, the nose cone would swing open to reveal docking hardware that allows the vehicle to latch onto the International Space Station.
But for this mission, the Fram2 crew will spend a few days free-flying through space. So the docking hardware was replaced with a large window — called a cupola.
A SpaceX mission controler just announced: “orbit insertion nominal.”
That’s aerospace parlance for a smooth flight, confirming that the four Fram2 passengers are on the way to accomplishing their unique goal for this mission: passing directly over Earth’s poles from space.
“We’re honored to deliver you safely to your polar orbit. Enjoy the views of the poles, send to some pictures, and our hearts will be … with you as you go over the poles, have a great flight,” one mission controller told the crew.
SpaceX just confirmed the single engine that power the upper segment of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket has quit firing — just as expected.
Now that the rocket has spent its fuel, Crew Dragon is now officially traveling at orbital speeds. The spacecraft is expected to begin free-flying soon, using only its onboard thrusters to maneuver through space.
The bottom portion of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket just made a safe landing on the company’s droneship, called A Shortfall of Gravitas.
The Crew Dragon spacecraft and four Fram2 passengers are now being propelled by the rocket’s upper stage.
Every astronaut launch needs a Zero G indicator — a title that’s been held by a variety of items, including a sequined dinosaur and a “baby Yoda” plush.
The small toys serve a practical purpose: The Zero G indicator is the only object not strapped down or tethered to the walls of a spacecraft after launch.
So the tiny, cushy object will be the first thing to float freely in the cabin of the SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule.
In short: It serves as the first surefire sign that the crew is experiencing weightlessness.
On social media, Wang suggested the Fram2 crew brought a bear. If true, that’s a slightly less lighthearted selection than is typical: According to Wang’s post, the bear is meant to refer to a bear market — or a significant slump in stock value that could be a sign of economic downturn.
That’s why we picked a bear as our zero-g indicator. 🐻❄️ https://t.co/gYXBPCxXvL
— Chun (@satofishi) March 30, 2025
The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket just hit Main Engine Cutoff, or MECO.
That means the bottom, first-stage booster of the rocket has burned through most of its fuel. It will now head back for landing as the Crew Dragon capsule continues to space.
The SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule carrying the four Fram2 crewmembers is headed skyward, riding atop a Falcon 9 rocket.
The bottom portion of the rocket is set to fire for about 2.5 minutes before detaching and heading back for landing.
Meanwhile, the upper segment — or “stage” — of the Falcon 9 will fire up its engine, which is optimized for firing in the vacuum of space. It will continue propelling the Crew Dragon capsule faster until it hits orbital speeds, or more than 17,500 miles per hour.
The group began training for the Fram2 mission last year, and the preparations have included sequestering in “harsh environments” in Alaska as well as training at SpaceX’s headquarters in Hawthorne, California.
“We have an untraditional mission,” Fram2’s Jannicke Mikkelsen said Friday. “We’re not your typical NASA astronauts. …We’ve gone from nothing to being certified astronauts to fly.”
It should be noted, however, that there is no formal certification a person must recieve in order to travel to space.
US regulators are actually barred from requiring any sort of license or formal approval — part of an effort to avoid bogging down the young space startup community with regulations.
“In most cases, the FAA is explicitly prohibited from issuing regulations to protect the health and safety of humans aboard commercial spacecraft,” reads one synopsis on the legal framework from the Congressional Research Service.
Instead, current law “takes an informed consent approach.”
That means rocket and spacecraft operators that want to fly tourists “must notify spaceflight participants (i.e., occupants who are neither government astronauts nor crew employed by the operator) about the risks of launch and reentry and inform them in writing that the U.S. government has not certified their spacecraft as safe,” the document states.
To be clear, however, SpaceX’s Crew Dragon does have certification from NASA to fly the agency’s astronauts, and Dragon capsules have completed more than a dozen successful crewed missions since 2020.
Launching a group of people — or satellites — on an orbital path that circumnavigates the North and South poles is no small task.
And it’s rarely done from Florida: East Coast launch sites are ideal for missions that travel directly eastward, because Earth’s rotation can give rockets flying that direction a significant natural boost.
But Fram2 will have to launch southward.
Such a trajectory will require the rocket to expend massive amounts of power — resulting in “a significant loss of performance for that launch vehicle in terms of how much mass it can put into orbit,” said Dr. Craig Kluever, a professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at the University of Missouri.
SpaceX has flown satellites into polar orbit from Florida before, using a dogleg maneuver that required SpaceX’s Flacon 9 rocket to fly eastward over the Atlantic Ocean before veering sharply to the south.
Each crewed SpaceX flight has a designated “abort corridor,” or a stretch of the flight path during which SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule, carrying astronauts, may have to eject itself away from a malfunctioning rocket in an emergency situation.
While most astronaut flights travel out over the Atlantic and have abort corridors that end near Ireland, the Fram2 crew will instead travel south — passing over populated areas shortly after launch, according to the Federal Aviation Administration, which licenses commercial rocket launches.
“If we do get into a Dragon abort scenario … (the spacecraft) basically will dodge Florida, Cuba, Panama, Peru and land in the water,” said Jon Edwards, SpaceX’s vice president of Falcon launch vehicles, on Friday. “They’ll be in the water, and we’ll go get them.”
If an in-flight emergency abort is required later in the flight path, however, Edwards said SpaceX will “have to rely on the Coast Guard or our military assets to get there as fast as possible.”
SpaceX had to obtain a modified launch license from the FAA in order to carry out this mission, which “involved a safety evaluation of the proposed operational changes including the contingency abort scenarios,” according to the agency.
What exactly is the Fram2 mission? Is it space tourism? Is it a daring excursion pushing spaceflight forward? Is it both?
The space industry and community are still quibbling about how exactly to define these self-funded trips to space.
Key context for this mission: Putting humans into an orbit around the Earth’s poles has never been done before. But it also may not offer all that much scientific value.
The crew members will carry out 22 research and science experiments during their days in space — most involve evaluating crew health and could be carried out regardless of their flight path.
So the Fram2 flight plan may have been made in part to intentionally chase a superlative.
“This is a private mission. You need something to say that’s different and exciting about it,” said Dr. Christopher Combs, the associate dean of research at the Klesse College of Engineering and Integrated Design at the University of Texas at San Antonio.
“It’s interesting that nobody’s ever actually done a true polar orbit,” Combs added, “and it’s great that we’ve got commercial providers that are making space travel increasingly routine.”
In his mind, Combs added, flying a human spaceflight mission around the poles is “a notch above gimmick, but not exactly a groundbreaking milestone.”
For his part, here’s what Fram2 organizer Chun Wang said on the topic in pre-recorded remarks aired during SpaceX’s live coverage of tonight’s launch:
“Some people may think it’s a tourist mission — I don’t mind that. …But for me, it’s exploration,” he said.
Mission commander Chun Wang spearheaded this journey, and he’s bringing along three fellow explorers and polar enthusiasts.
Jannicke Mikkelsen, the designated vehicle commander for this mission, is Wang’s occasional neighbor in Svalbard, a group of remote Norwegian islands near the North Pole, and a dedicated adventurer herself.
As a cinematographer and director, she has focused her work on sci-fi and documentary projects and developing technology to film in harsh and remote environments, according to her website. She plans to make a film about this mission.
Rabea Rogge, Fram2’s mission pilot, is also a doctoral candidate researching navigation, guidance and control for automated vehicles traversing harsh conditions, according to a Norwegian University of Science and Technology webpage. She could be the first German woman to fly to orbit.
Finally, Eric Philips, this mission’s medical officer, is a full-time explorer and guide who has carried out about 30 excursions to Earth’s polar regions since 1992, according to his website and remarks he made Friday.
He described the polar environment as “incredibly hostile” on Friday.
“And what a perfect comparison to us being inside Dragon as we orbit around the North and South poles for three to five days,” Philips added. “It’s that kind of same blizzard experience. We’ve got four people locked inside … an incredibly harsh environment.”
The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket that will blast the Fram2 crew’s Dragon spacecraft to orbit is now being loaded up with fuel.
SpaceX’s John Insprucker just confirmed that the focus now is on driving toward the target launch time.
“As a reminder, when we start loading propellant in 20 seconds, that’s going to commit us to the T-Zero, and that’ll be our only chance for this evening,” he said.
Chun Wang is a somewhat mysterious figure.
Two cryptocurrency experts CNN reached out to said that Wang tends to keep a lower profile than most people in the blockchain investment community.
What we do know is that Wang is a cofounder of Stakefish and F2Pool, “which are among the largest Bitcoin mining pools and Ethereum staking providers,” according to the Fram2 website.
F2Pool is an organization that uses a network of computers to mine for cryptocurrency, which involves solving complex mathematical problems. And F2Pool is very prominent, responsible for about 11% of the total Bitcoin “hashrate” — or the total computational power being used to mine for coins.
Wang’s net worth is ostensibly in the billions, though an exact figure is not clear. And how much he paid for this mission is unknown.
Outside of his blockchain business, Wang is an avid adventurer, having visited more than 100 countries.
“My own journey has been shaped by lifelong curiosity and the fascination with pushing boundaries,” Wang said Friday during an audio-only Spaces event on X, the social media platform owned by SpaceX CEO Elon Musk.
Wang is not nervous or anxious about this mission, according a post he made on X.
“Now, everything needs to be done has been done. From here on, it’s just following the procedures. Excited doesn’t belong to me anymore.”
Fram2 commander Chun Wang
The Fram2 crew just hit one of several crucial milestones before takeoff. Launch controllers have all agreed to move forward with tonight’s launch — clearing the way for the rocket to begin filling up with fuel.
The company will also now activate the emergency launch escape system on the Fram2 crew’s Dragon capsule, and the aerial arm that the passengers used to board the vehicle can begin moving away.
SpaceX just began its live coverage of tonight’s takeoff. The stream is available on the company’s website as well as X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter that SpaceX CEO Elon Musk purchased in 2022.
Hosting tonight’s broadcast are John Insprucker, a principal integration engineer at SpaceX, and Jesse Anderson, a senior manufacturing engineering manager.
Unlike the typical astronaut missions that SpaceX flies in collaboration with NASA, there’s no play-by-play of a lot of the milestones leading up to launch.
But mission commander Chun Wang, who is financing this flight, has shared some updates on his social media account.
A few hours ago, he posted a quick snapshot of the crew in transit aboard Teslas — where they watched a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launch Starlink satellites from a different launchpad.
Falcon 9 delivers 28 @Starlink satellites to orbit and completes the 425th landing of an orbital class rocket pic.twitter.com/1vMeMEtkxf
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) March 31, 2025
And just a short while ago, Wang shared footage of the Fram2 crew waving goodbye to ground crews as the hatch on their spacecraft swung shut. SpaceX passengers always board their capsule hours before takeoff in order to allow plenty of time for pre-launch checkouts.
L-2h05m
Side hatch closed. We are go for launch. 🚀 pic.twitter.com/EGcvYFRKVx
— Chun (@satofishi) March 31, 2025
SpaceX will start a livestream of the event about one hour before liftoff. The company has several possible launch opportunities: 9:46 p.m., 11:20 p.m., 12:53 a.m., and 2:26 a.m ET.
SpaceX is set to launch its latest mission for paying customers — taking a cryptocurrency billionaire and three guests on a dayslong trip that will orbit directly above Earth’s North and South poles — a feat never attempted before.
Liftoff from Florida is expected during a 4.5-hour launch window that opens at 9:46 p.m. ET .
Mission controllers will be keeping a close eye on the weather.
“While we’re hopeful we could fly on Monday, (and) it is possible — if we’ll need to wait a couple days on the pad, we’re prepared to do that,” said Kiko Dontchev, SpaceX’s vice president of launch, during a virtual event on Friday.
When liftoff does occur, here’s what to expect:
• SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket will fly south from the company’s launch facilities due East of Orlando — tracing a path that no human spaceflight mission has ever traveled.
• The Fram2 crew’s capsule will head over Cuba and Panama as the rocket fires the spacecraft to orbit.
• A few minutes into flight, the first-stage booster of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket will have spent most of its fuel. It will then detach from the crew capsule as well as the rocket’s second, or upper, stage.
• The Falcon 9 rocket booster will then head for landing on a seafaring barge.
• The upper part of the rocket, still attached to the Crew Dragon capsule, will then fire up its own engine and begin propelling the crew to orbital speeds — typically more than 17,500 miles per hour (28,000 kilometers per hour).
• After reaching orbit, the crew is expected to spend three to five days in space before splashing down off the coast of California.
