SpaceX to Conduct First Manned Earth Polar Orbit Flight by Year-End

TapTechNews August 13th news, SpaceX, the American space exploration technology company, announced on Monday that it will carry out the first manned orbital flight around the Earth's polar region by humans before the end of this year. This private space flight mission is led by Chinese-American cryptocurrency entrepreneur Chun Wang, and the other three members include a polar explorer, a robotics expert, and a film producer.

The mission named Fram2 is named after the Norwegian exploration ship Fram, and will take the Endurance Dragon spacecraft from SpaceX's launch site in Florida into the polar corridor and fly directly over the North Pole and the South Pole. The spacecraft will not dock with the International Space Station (ISS) but orbit the Earth independently. To obtain the best lighting conditions, the three- to five-day mission is planned to fly over Antarctica around the summer solstice in the southern hemisphere, and the spacecraft will be equipped with a dome cabin for photography.

According to TapTechNews, the Endurance Dragon spacecraft (CrewDragon Endurance) is named after the famous ship of the explorer Shackleton, which was trapped in the Antarctic ice and eventually sank about a century ago.

This will be SpaceX's third manned Dragon spacecraft free flight mission after the Inspiration4 mission in 2021 and the Polaris Dawn mission to be launched later this month.