Fram2 will be the first polar-orbit human spaceflight mission to explore Earth. It will launch into a 90° circular orbit to the south from Florida, making it the first human spaceflight to fly over Earth’s polar regions from low-Earth orbit.
The North and South Poles are invisible 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.
The crew plans to observe Earth’s polar regions at an altitude of 425–450 km. At this altitude, Dragon will fly from the North Pole to the South Pole in just 46 minutes and 40 seconds, exactly 30 times faster than the One More Orbit mission did in 2019, when crew member Jannicke Mikkelsen and her team circumnavigated the Earth in a Gulfstream G650ER and set the Guinness World Record.
Throughout the 3-to-5-day mission, the crew plans to observe Earth’s polar wilderness through Dragon’s cupola, leveraging insights from space physicists and citizen scientists to study unusual light emissions resemebling auroras.
The crew will study green fragments and mauve ribbons of continuous emissions comparable to the phenomenon known as STEVE (Strong Thermal Emission Velocity Enhancement), which has been measured at an altitude of approximately 400–500 km above Earth’s atmosphere.
The crew will also work with SpaceX to conduct a variety of research to better understand the effects of spaceflight on the human body and developing tools to prepare humanity for future long-duration spaceflight, from capturing the first human x-ray images in space to Just-in-Time training tools to the effects of spaceflight on behavioral health.