A Falcon 9 rocket lifted off on Monday night, sending four amateur astronauts on an unprecedented journey around Earth’s poles. The mission is traveling where no crew has gone before, and SpaceX just revealed the first views of the planet’s chilly polar regions from above.
SpaceX released a short video taken from the Dragon crew vehicle, showcasing the incredible view from the freshly launched Fram2 mission. “First views of Earth’s polar regions from Dragon,” the company wrote on X. Fram2’s four-person crew is traveling in a polar orbit around the planet, where they are set to spend three to five days carrying out research from their unique vantage point.
First views of Earth’s polar regions from Dragon pic.twitter.com/3taP34zCeN
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) April 1, 2025
Fram2, named in honor of the original ship that reached both Earth’s Arctic and Antarctic regions, lifted off on March 31 at 9:46 p.m. ET from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The private mission launched a crew of first-timers aboard the Dragon Resilience, the same spacecraft from which the Polaris Dawn crew pulled off the first commercial spacewalk in history just last year. Chun Wang, a crypto billionaire who founded the Bitcoin mining companies f2pool and stakefish, is commanding, and reportedly funding, the mission. The rest of the crew includes Jannicke Mikkelsen, a Norwegian cinematographer; Eric Philips, an Australian polar adventurer; and Rabea Rogge, a German robotics researcher.
The Dragon spacecraft is flying over the planet’s polar regions at an altitude of around 265 to 280 miles (425 to 450 kilometers), and traveling in a polar orbit at an inclination of about 60 to 90 degrees to the equator. A group of humans has never ventured to polar orbit before, mainly due to the higher-than-usual radiation levels. It also requires a lot more energy, and money, to reach polar orbit because the trajectory does not benefit from Earth’s rotation.
The astronauts will conduct 22 research studies to improve our understanding of human health in space and prepare for long duration missions. The crew will attempt to take the first X-ray in space, perform exercise studies to maintain muscle and skeletal mass, and grow mushrooms in microgravity. Once back on Earth, the crew will exit the Dragon spacecraft “without additional medical and operational assistance, helping researchers characterize the ability of astronauts to perform unassisted functional tasks after short and long durations in space,” according to SpaceX.
From the unique vantage point, the private crew will also be able to observe the aurora-like phenomenon called STEVE (Strong Thermal Emission Velocity Enhancement), known for its hazy purple and green streaks across the sky.
So far, Fram2 has delivered with breathtaking views of Earth’s poles, and there’s plenty more to come from SpaceX’s latest private mission.
