Washington DC: Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk on Tuesday reshared images of the first views of Earth's polar regions captured by SpaceX's Dragon capsule, which blasted into space a day ago.
"This is the first time humans have been in orbit around the poles of Earth!" wrote Musk, the Space X CEO and Founder on the social media platform X.
On March 31, SpaceX launched the private astronaut mission named 'Fram2' from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. it is billed as "the first crewed spaceflight ever to orbit Earth over the planet's poles." The mission, commanded by Chinese-born cryptocurrency billionaire Chun Wang and three more crewmates- vehicle commander Jannicke Mikkelsen of Norway, pilot Rabea Rogge of Germany, and Australian Eric Phillips who is Fram2's medical officer and mission specialist.
None of the four private astronauts have ever been to Space before.
The mission is expected to last three to five days, according to SpaceX.
The crew will perform 22 scientific experiments over the course of the mission, including growing mushrooms in space for the first time ever and taking X-rays of the human body in orbit, also never attempted before.
They are expected to return to Earth with a splashdown at sea.
"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," Space X said.
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