CAPE CANAVERAL, FL — A Falcon 9 rocket lifted off Monday night carrying four private citizens into the first crewed orbit ever to pass directly over Earth’s poles, a historic feat that will allow Maltese-Chinese cryptocurrency entrepreneur Chun Wang and three companions to personally observe that the polar ice caps are, broadly speaking, still on the way out.
The Fram2 mission, named for the Norwegian polar research vessel that crossed the Arctic in the 1890s, will spend up to five days in a 425-mile orbit angled 90 degrees from the equator, granting its crew an unobstructed view of glaciers that climate scientists have been trying to get anyone with money to look at for roughly forty years.
“This is a tremendous opportunity for citizen science,” said Dr. Adriana Boell, a SpaceX-affiliated mission analyst, gesturing at a screen showing the projected ground track. “The crew will conduct 22 onboard experiments, including the first X-ray taken in space and a study on how human bone density changes in microgravity, neither of which will affect the ice.”
Wang, who funded the mission for an undisclosed amount widely estimated to fall somewhere between “a yacht” and “the GDP of Tonga,” told reporters before launch that he hoped Fram2 would inspire a new generation of explorers. He did not clarify whether he meant a generation that explores the poles or one that explores ways to leave the planet entirely.
Onboard cameras will livestream the polar passes to social media, where viewers can watch real-time 4K footage of an ecosystem in collapse rendered against the comforting black of space. The crew is expected to wave.
Climate researchers reached for comment expressed measured enthusiasm. “It is wonderful that four people will see the Arctic from above,” said Dr. Marten Kjellberg of the Stockholm Environmental Institute. “We have been seeing it from above for several decades, via satellite, for free. But sure.”
Mission commentary noted that the crew will also become the first humans to witness the aurora australis from low Earth orbit, an experience Wang described in a pre-flight statement as “a reminder that our planet is fragile and irreplaceable,” delivered from atop nine engines burning roughly 905 tons of kerosene.
SpaceX confirmed the capsule will splash down off the California coast on Saturday, at which point the crew will return to a planet that is, on average, marginally warmer than when they left.