SpaceX launches 4 people on a polar orbit never attempted before
Source: CNN/Yahoo
SpaceX on Monday launched its latest mission for paying customers: This time, a Crew Dragon spacecraft is carrying a cryptocurrency billionaire and three guests on a dayslong trip that will orbit directly above Earth’s North and South poles — a feat never attempted before. The mission, called Fram2, launched from SpaceX’s facilities at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida lifted off around 9:46 p.m. ET.
Spearheading the Fram2 mission is Malta resident Chun Wang, who made his fortune running Bitcoin mining operations and paid SpaceX an undisclosed sum of money for this trip. Joining him are a trio of other polar exploration enthusiasts: Norwegian film director Jannicke Mikkelsen, Germany-based robotics researcher Rabea Rogge and Australian adventurer Eric Philips.
After taking off from Florida, SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket had to fly south — tracing a path that no human spaceflight mission has ever traveled. The preplanned flight path for Fram2 was also expected to take the crew capsule over Cuba and Panama as the rocket fired the spacecraft toward orbit.
(snip)
Launching a group of people — or satellites — on an orbital path that circumnavigates the North and South poles is no small task. And it’s rarely done from Florida: East Coast launch sites are ideal for missions that travel directly eastward, because the Earth’s rotation can give rockets flying that direction a significant natural boost. But Fram2 had to launch southward. Such a trajectory requires the rocket to expend massive amounts of power — resulting in “a significant loss of performance for that launch vehicle in terms of how much mass it can put into orbit,” said Dr. Craig Kluever, a professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at the University of Missouri, during a phone interview last week.
Read more: https://www.yahoo.com/news/spacex-launches-4-people-polar-030642303.html
= new reply since forum marked as read
