The first human spaceflight ever to cruise over Earth's polar regions, the privately funded Fram2 mission from SpaceX, is set to carry four astronauts on a roughly four-day orbital mission.
Fram2 will launch no earlier than Monday (March 31) aboard SpaceX's Crew Dragon capsule Resilience, which will also carry a variety of scientific experiments. This will be the sixth private astronaut mission by SpaceX, as well as Resilience's fourth launch.
Named after a Norwegian ship that explored the Arctic and Antarctic regions at the turn of the 20th century, Fram2 will follow a long tradition of privately funded polar expeditions. This one, however, is the first of the lot to go to space.
Let's meet the crew members who are scheduled to launch next week on this pioneering mission.
Related: Private SpaceX Fram2 mission ready for world's 1st crewed flight over Earth's polar regions (photos)
Chun Wang
Jannicke Mikkelsen
Rabea Rogge
Eric Phillips
Three of SpaceX's five previous private astronaut missions visited the International Space Station. Those three, known as Ax-1, Ax-2 and Ax-3, were organized by the Houston-based company Axiom Space.
The other two were free flyers in Earth orbit, like Fram2 will be. Inspiration4, which launched in September 2021, was the first all-private orbital spaceflight, and last September's Polaris Dawn featured the first-ever commercial spacewalk.
