SpaceX has successfully launched its first-ever human spaceflight to explore the Earth’s polar regions.
The new mission comes just 14 days after the return of NASA’s SpaceX Crew-9 astronauts, including Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore, who spent an unexpected nine months in space.
On March 31, 2025, at 21:46 local time, the SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule lifted off to polar orbit aboard a Falcon 9 rocket as part of the Fram2 mission from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, SpaceX announced in a statement.
In a post published to X on April 1, 2025, SpaceX said the spacecraft had successfully separated from the Falcon 9’s second stage and shared its first video footage of what Earth’s polar regions look like from the Dragon.
First views of Earth’s polar regions from Dragon pic.twitter.com/3taP34zCeN
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) April 1, 2025
The Fram2 mission is commanded by Chun Wang, an entrepreneur and adventurer from Malta. He is joined by an international crew: Vehicle Commander Jannicke Mikkelsen, Vehicle Pilot Rabea Rogge, and Mission Specialist and Medical Officer Eric Philips. This marks the first spaceflight for all crewmembers.
On the day of the launch Chun shared on X that the Fram2 mission crew “becomes the 681st humans to fly above the Kármán line, and the 626th to orbit the Earth.”
The mission has been named in honor of the ship Fram that helped explorers first reach Earth’s Arctic and Antarctic regions in the late 1800s. SpaceX said the astronauts are carrying a small piece of that ship with them to orbit.
Named in honor of Fram, the first exploration ship to complete voyages to the Arctic and Antarctica in the late 1800s, the @framonauts are carrying a small piece of that ship with them to orbit pic.twitter.com/dDTJNiT7lc
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) April 1, 2025
During the three-to-five-day mission, Dragon and its crew will explore Earth from a polar orbit at an altitude of 433 kilometers (269 miles). They will carry out 22 research projects designed to help advance long-duration space exploration and understanding of human health in space.
While Fram2 is in orbit, the crew intends to conduct the first X-ray of the human body in space, perform exercise studies to maintain muscle and skeletal mass, and even grow mushrooms in microgravity.
Once the mission concludes, SpaceX said that Fram2 will be “the first Dragon human spaceflight mission to splash down off the coast of California.”
Additionally, after safely returning to Earth, the crew plans to exit from the Dragon spacecraft without additional medical and operational assistance, helping researchers characterize the ability of astronauts to perform unassisted functional tasks after short and long durations in space.
