Astronauts , cosmonauts , and taikonauts have move around into place since the 1960s , and humans have been in blank unceasingly for the last 25 year – and will be formany more to come in . Yet , all those humans tend to locomote around the mid - latitude of the major planet , never drift too far north or due south . spaceman have not cast their eyes down on the frigid regions , but this will change next hebdomad .
TheFram2 missionis expected to found on Monday , March 31 , from the Kennedy Space Center , and it will see the first human crowd to go into a glacial orbit . The name is a reference to the Norse polar ship Fram , used by explorers inexpeditionsto the Arctic and Antarctic regions , include by Roald Amundsen .
Cryptocurrency investor and enterpriser Chun Wang is the mission commanding officer , and the repose of his civilian work party include vehicle commander Jannicke Mikkelsen , pilot Rabea Rogge , and commission specialist and aesculapian police officer Eric Philips . It is the first blank mission for all of them .
“ After extensive training and loyalty from our total crew , we are honored to cover the bequest of the Fram name in an exciting era of commercial-grade blank space exploration , ” Wang order in astatement .
“ We are grateful for this chance , and we are grateful to SpaceX for making this charge a realism we are excited to be the first crew to regard and charm the Earth ’s polar region from low Earth orbit and support significant inquiry to help boost humanity ’s capabilities for foresightful continuance space exploration . ”
The missionary post is set up to last between three and five days and will carry a serial publication of interesting experiments , such as hunting forSTEVE – an first light - alike phenomenon – as well as performing the first X - ray image of a human in infinite . The hunting for dayspring is part of theSolarMaX mission , a collaboration with the University Center in Svalbard .
The mission also has educational collaborations that will get to fruition over the orbital permanence . There will be a competition with the ham wireless community calledFram2Ham , and the squad is working with Ootiboo onThe Blue Marbleproject .
The missionary post will launch in a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule , with a viewing cupola like the Intrepid mission . The current launch date is March 31 , at 11:20 pm ET ( 3:20 am UTC , April 1 ) .
