A New Day for Polar Exploration

Kennedy Space Center, FL. – History Launches! At 9:46 PM EDT, the "Fram2" mission soared on a first ever human mission to orbit the Earth at the poles. This mission named after the Norwegian research ship “Fram” which visited the South Pole back in 1911. Today, FRAM 2 launched into history and into a polar corridor orbit from Launch Complex 39-A. The launch took a near due South flight path along the Florida coast and over Cuba on the way towards the South Pole.  

Storms earlier in the count made for an incredible display while the Falcon 9 was still on the pad ahead of launch.

This mission will fly directly over the North and South poles for a planned three- to five-day mission. The mission is being timed to fly over Antarctica near the summer solstice in the Southern Hemisphere, to afford maximum lighting.

The four-person crew will fly, fittingly, aboard Crew Dragon “Endurance”, which is named after Ernest Shackleton's famous ship that was trapped in the Antarctic ice and eventually sank there about a century ago. The spacecraft is fitted with a cupola for photography and filming as well as other Earth observations. Crew Dragon “Endurance” supported the Crew-1 Mission as well as Inspiration 4 and Polaris Dawn.

The mission will enter a low Earth orbit along a polar corridor allowing it to fly over both of Earth's poles and will aim to observe and study the STEVE phenomenon and conduct experiments on the human body, including the first X-ray of a human in space.

Previously explored by only ground and aerial observation science, the North and South Poles have been overlooked to astronauts on the International Space Station, as well as to all previous human spaceflight missions except for the Apollo lunar missions but only from far away. To date, the highest inclination achieved by human spaceflight has been the Soviet Vostok 6 mission, at 65°. This new flight trajectory will unlock new possibilities for human spaceflight.

Story By: Graham Smith

Images By: Michael Seeley and Graham Smith