A Bitcoin investor who secured a SpaceX flight for himself and three polar explorers launched into space on Monday night, embarking on the first-ever crewed mission to traverse both the North and South Poles.
Chun Wang, a Chinese-born entrepreneur, lifted off from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. SpaceX’s Falcon rocket veered south over the Atlantic, setting the space tourists on a trajectory never before attempted in 64 years of human spaceflight.
Wang has not disclosed how much he paid Elon Musk’s SpaceX for the 3 ½-day ultimate polar journey.
The initial stage of their flight—from Florida to the South Pole—took just under 30 minutes. From their intended altitude of approximately 270 miles (440 kilometers), their fully automated capsule will orbit Earth roughly every 1 ½ hours, including 46 minutes to traverse pole to pole.
“Enjoy the views of the poles. Send us some pictures,” SpaceX Launch Control radioed as the capsule reached orbit.
Having already visited the polar regions in person, Wang sought to experience them from space. The mission is also about “pushing boundaries, sharing knowledge,” he said before launch.
Now a Maltese citizen, Wang is accompanied by three guests: Norwegian filmmaker Jannicke Mikkelsen, German robotics researcher Rabea Rogge, and Australian polar guide Eric Philips.
Mikkelsen, the first Norwegian to go to space, has previously flown over the poles, though at a much lower altitude. She participated in the 2019 record-breaking mission that circumnavigated the globe via the poles in a Gulfstream jet, commemorating the 50th anniversary of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin’s moon landing.
The crew has planned two dozen experiments—including the first human X-rays in space—and has brought more cameras than usual to document their journey, dubbed Fram2 after the Norwegian polar research vessel from over a century ago.
Until now, no astronaut had ventured beyond 65 degrees north and south latitude, just shy of the Arctic and Antarctic Circles. The Soviet Union’s Valentina Tereshkova, the first woman in space, set this limit in 1963. Yuri Gagarin, the first man in space, along with other early cosmonauts and NASA shuttle astronauts in 1990, came close to this threshold.
A polar orbit is particularly beneficial for climate and Earth-mapping satellites, as well as spy satellites, since it enables full-Earth observation each day, with the spacecraft flying from pole to pole while the planet rotates beneath it.
Geir Klover, director of the Fram Museum in Oslo, Norway—home to the original polar exploration ship—hopes this mission will increase awareness of climate change and the melting polar ice caps. He lent the crew a small fragment of the ship’s wooden deck, bearing the signature of Oscar Wisting, who, alongside Roald Amundsen in the early 1900s, became one of the first to reach both poles.
Wang proposed the idea of a polar spaceflight to SpaceX in 2023, two years after U.S. tech entrepreneur Jared Isaacman completed the first of two chartered missions with Musk’s company. Isaacman is now being considered for NASA’s top position.
SpaceX’s Kiko Dontchev noted last week that the company is continuously improving its training, allowing “ordinary people” without traditional aerospace experience to “step into a capsule ... and remain at ease.”
Wang and his team regard the polar flight as an adventure akin to camping in the wild and embrace the challenge.
“Spaceflight is becoming increasingly routine, and honestly, I’m happy to see that,” Wang posted on X last week.
Since his first flight in 2002, Wang has been keeping count—travelling on planes, helicopters, and hot air balloons in his quest to visit every country. Having visited more than half so far, he deliberately scheduled this liftoff to mark his 1,000th flight.
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