 Artist's rendering ofCrew Dragon Resilience during Fram2 | |
| Mission type | Private spaceflight |
|---|---|
| Operator | SpaceX |
| COSPAR ID | 2025-066A |
| SATCATno. | 63427 |
| Website | f2 |
| Mission duration | 3 days, 14 hours and 32 minutes |
| Spacecraft properties | |
| Spacecraft | Crew Dragon Resilience |
| Spacecraft type | Crew Dragon |
| Manufacturer | SpaceX |
| Crew | |
| Crew size | 4 |
| Members | |
| Start of mission | |
| Launch date | 1 April 2025, 01:46:50 UTC (31 March, 9:46:50 p.m.EDT)[1] |
| Rocket | Falcon 9 Block 5 (B1085‑6),Flight 454 |
| Launch site | Kennedy,LC‑39A |
| End of mission | |
| Recovered by | MV Shannon |
| Landing date | 4 April 2025, 16:19:28 UTC (9:19:28 a.m.PDT) |
| Landing site | Pacific Ocean nearOceanside, California (33°00′N117°42′W / 33.0°N 117.7°W /33.0; -117.7) |
| Orbital parameters | |
| Reference system | Geocentric orbit |
| Regime | Polar orbit (retrograde) |
| Perigee altitude | 202 km (126 mi) |
| Apogee altitude | 413 km (257 mi) |
| Inclination | 90.01° |
| Period | 93 minutes, 10 seconds |
 Mission insignia | |
Fram2 was aprivate human spaceflight mission operated bySpaceX with aCrew Dragon spacecraft on behalf of entrepreneurChun Wang. During the mission, Wang and his all-civilian crew—Jannicke Mikkelsen,Rabea Rogge andEric Philips—were launched into apolar orbit, a first for a human spaceflight mission. During the three-day mission, the crew conducted scientific research.[2][3]
The crew of Fram2 was announced in August 2024.[4][5]
| Position[6] | Crew | |
|---|---|---|
| Mission commander[a] | Chun Wang First spaceflight | |
| Vehicle commander[a] | Jannicke Mikkelsen First spaceflight | |
| Pilot | Rabea Rogge First spaceflight | |
| Mission specialist Medical officer | Eric Philips First spaceflight | |
The mission studied the Earth's poles and their space environment. It was a free-flight mission of the Crew Dragon spacecraft, which was equipped with the panoramic cupola attachment that first flew onInspiration4.
Initially, Crew DragonEndurance was selected for this flight, because it shares its name withErnest Shackleton's Antarctic exploration vessel. Due to changes in the Crew Dragon manifest, however,Endurance was assigned toCrew-10, and it was decided to fly Fram2 usingResilience. The mission launched fromLaunch Complex 39A at theKennedy Space Center on 1 April 2025 at 01:46:50 UTC (31 March, 9:46:50 p.m.EDT, local time at the launch site).[1]
The mission is named Fram2 in reference and succession to the Norwegianpolar exploration shipFram, the first to complete expeditions to both the North Pole and South Pole between 1893 and 1912. The crew carried a piece of the ship's teak deck to space.[7]
The mission entered a low Earth orbit with an apogee of 413 kilometers (257 mi) and a perigee of 202 kilometers (126 mi) with a polarretrograde inclination of 90.01°, making it fly over both of Earth's poles.[8] It broke the previous record for highest orbital inclination of a crewed spaceflight set byVostok 6 in 1963.[9][10]
Because of the unique launch to the south, the software on the Dragon spacecraft was updated with new abort scenarios that would propel the capsule away from populated areas in Florida, Cuba, Panama and Peru to make a water landing.[10]
The crew planned to observe and study aurora-like phenomena such asSTEVE and green fragments and conduct experiments on the human body, including the firstX-ray of a human in space.[3] The crew also attempted to growoyster mushrooms, the first mushrooms to be grown in space.[10] Rogge planned[needs update] a series ofslow-scan television image transmissions overamateur radio targeted to educational groups competing in an event called Fram2Ham.[11] Rogge also executed the Swiss-Nevisian biological experiment "Space Genomics" by SwissOliver Ullrich and Cora Thiel.[12]
Dr. Christopher Combs, the associate dean of research at theKlesse College of Engineering and Integrated Design at theUniversity of Texas at San Antonio, described the mission as, "a notch above a gimmick, but not exactly a groundbreaking milestone", with the planned experiments described as offering limited scientific value and able to be conducted regardless of the flight path. However, for the crew members, each with ties to polar exploration, the mission holds personal significance.[10]
The mission concluded with a splashdown in thePacific Ocean off the coast ofOceanside, California on 4 April 2025 at 16:19:28 UTC (9:19:28 a.m.PDT, local time at the landing site). It was the first Pacific splashdown for a Crew Dragon mission. WhileSpaceX Dragon 1 cargo missions previously landed in the Pacific, recovery operations shifted to the Eastern U.S. in 2019 to expedite the return of astronauts and critical cargo to Kennedy Space Center. However, this adjustment had an unintended consequence: the trunk module, jettisoned before reentry, was expected to burn up in the atmosphere, yet at least four instances of trunk debris being found on land were reported. During this Pacific Ocean splashdown, the trunk remained attached longer and was directed toward a remote area of the ocean calledPoint Nemo (nicknamed thespacecraft cemetery), where any debris that survives reentry will be unlikely to cause damage.[13][14]
| Spacecraft |   | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hardware | |||||||
| Missions |
| ||||||
| |||||||
