Crew Dragon Fram2 (Crew Dragon Resilience)

Launch, orbit & landing data: Designation  63427 /25066A Launch date - time  01 Avril 2025 - 01:46:50 UTC Launch site  CCK, LC-39A Launch vehicle  Falcon-9 Block 5 (B1085-6) Flight 454 Spacecraft  Crew Dragon (Dragon C207-F4) Mass (kg)  12519? kg Total cargo mass (kg)   kg Mission  Private spaceflight: SpaceX 4 manned launch Geocentric Polar orbit:    - Perigee / Apogee  202-413 km    - Inclination  90.01°    - Period  93 min, 10 sec Time docked  145d, 18h, 10min Deorbit burn date - time   Landing date - time  04 Avril 2025 - 16:19:28 UTC Landing location  Pacific Ocean, near Oceanside, California (33.0°N 117.7°W) Recovered by  MV Shannon Mission Duration (d:hr:min)  3d, 14h, 32min Nbr orbits  55 Landing crew  launch crew

Launched Crew:

Launch crew: Wang, Mikkelsen, Rogge and Philips.

Description:

• Launch from Cape Canaveral (KSC) and landing west of Oceanside, California.
• Fram2, which will be the first human spaceflight mission to explore Earth from a polar orbit and fly over the Earth's polar regions for the first time. Named in honor of the ship that helped explorers first reach Earth's Arctic and Antarctic regions, Fram2 will be commanded by Chun Wang, an entrepreneur and adventurer from Malta. Wang aims to use the mission to highlight the crew's explorational spirit, bring a sense of wonder and curiosity to the larger public, and highlight how technology can help push the boundaries of exploration of Earth and through the mission's research.
  Wang is the co-founder and administrator at F2Pool and founder of stake.fish, one of the largest validators of cryptocurrency. He is currently halfway through visiting every country/territory in the world.
• Mikkelsen is a Norwegian award-winning film director and cinematographer who specializes in movie productions using next-gen technology. Jannicke has developed a niche working in hazardous environments on film productions in the arctic, underwater, aviation and space. Her innovation highlights include working with wildlife pioneer David Attenborough to shoot the first 360 documentaries underwater, film director for the legendary rock band Queen's 3D-360 live music video, Guinness World Record holder of the fastest circumnavigation of Earth via the North and South Pole while live-streaming to 55 million viewers from 43,000 feet, and virtual cinematographer for Netflix's sci-fi thriller "Stowaway" starring Anna Kendrick. Mikkelsen is the recipient of the first ever European Society of Cinematographers Award for Extraordinary Technical Achievement, in 2017 she was named one of Norway's most influential woman in tech, and in 2019 one of UK's most influential women in tech.
• Philips has lead expeditions to the four biggest ice caps in the world and has been, with his fellow citizen and companion John Muir, the first Australian to reach both the North and South Pole on skis. Born in April 1962, he studied at the University of South Australia from which he received a Bachelor's degree in Education and Outdoor Education. During his young years, he was the director of Outdoor Education on the Timbertop campus of Geelong Grammar School. In his early thirties, he rushes headlong into his first big challenges. In 1995, he succeeds in crossing Greenland for the first time, using skis, power kites and a kayak, from Ammassalik to Kangerlussuaq. A film came out of this adventure: "Chasing the Midnight Sun" which was awarded the Emmy Award. A few years later, he used his experience to cross the Patagonian ice cap; he also crossed the Spitzberg cap (2008), the Icelandic glaciers (2003) as well as the Ellesmere Island glaciers (1992). In 1996-97, Philips worked as a field education officer at the Mawson Australian station (Antarctica) for the Australian Antarctic Division.
  Rogge is a PhD candidate in the Department of Marine Technology at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. Her doctorate thesis is in data-driven navigation, guidance and control for autonomous surface vehicles in harsh conditions. She previously received a Masters of Science degree in Electrical Engineering and Information Technology from ETH Zurich in Switzerland. Fascinated by extreme environments, she has studied them to understand the limits of our world - and to push beyond them, whether that is space by taking the technology lead of a satellite mission, the ocean by taking direct action for marine conservation at sea or the Arctic by preparing for a Greenland crossing in 2025.

Rocket Fram 2 rollout

Rocket launch

Mission details:

• 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 on Inspiration4.
• Initially, Crew Dragon Endurance was selected for this flight, because it shares its name with Ernest Shackleton's Antarctic exploration vessel. Due to changes in the Crew Dragon manifest, however, Endurance was assigned to Crew-10, and it was decided to fly Fram2 using Resilience. The mission launched from Launch Complex 39A at the Kennedy 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).
• The mission is named Fram2 in reference and succession to the Norwegian polar exploration ship Fram, 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.
  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 polar retrograde inclination of 90.01°, making it fly over both of Earth's poles. It broke the previous record for highest orbital inclination of a crewed spaceflight set by Vostok 6 in 1963.
  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.
  The crew planned to observe and study aurora-like phenomena such as STEVE and green fragments and conduct experiments on the human body, including the first X-ray of a human in space. The crew also attempted to grow oyster mushrooms, the first mushrooms to be grown in space. Rogge planned a series of slow-scan television image transmissions over amateur radio targeted to educational groups competing in an event called Fram2Ham. Rogge also executed the Swiss-Nevisian biological experiment "Space Genomics" by Swiss Oliver Ullrich and Cora Thiel.
• Dr. Christopher Combs, the associate dean of research at the Klesse College of Engineering and Integrated Design at the University 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.[12]
  The mission concluded with a splashdown in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Oceanside, 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. While SpaceX 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 called Point Nemo (nicknamed the spacecraft cemetery), where any debris that survives reentry will be unlikely to cause damage

Fram 2 on parachutes.

Fram 2 recovery.

External links:

• Wikipedia: Description Fram2
• Space Facts: Description Fram2

Astrophilately covers:

Fram2 crew, CC. cancel. Credit: #411

Fram2 launch and landing cancel.