Elon Musk’s SpaceX has despatched a crew of 4 personal astronauts on the primary manned area flight to orbit the Earth’s poles, in a mission bankrolled and led by a rich crypto investor.
Chun Wang, the Chinese language-born Maltese entrepreneur who based the Bitcoin (BTC) mining pool F2Pool, paid for and is main SpaceX’s “Fram2” mission, which is known as after a Nineteenth-century Norwegian Arctic exploration ship.
Wang and three others blasted off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, at 1:46 am UTC on April 1, on a three- to five-day orbit that would be the first human area mission to fly over the North and South poles.
Liftoff of Fram2 and the @framonauts! pic.twitter.com/XBL5juCnHQ
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) April 1, 2025
Wang hasn’t disclosed how a lot he paid SpaceX for the flight, however he introduced alongside German polar scientist Rabea Rogge, Norwegian cinematographer Jannicke Mikkelsen and Australian Arctic adventurer Eric Philips.
SpaceX mentioned the crew can even perform 22 experiments — together with taking the primary X-ray in area and rising mushrooms — that are designed to tell on human well being in area and the consequences of long-duration area flight.
Chun Wang (proper) onboard the SpaceX Dragon capsule with Jannicke Mikkelsen (center-right), Rabea Rogge (center-left) and Eric Philips (left). Supply: SpaceX
Wang was born in China however mentioned in 2023 that he turned a citizen of Malta. He based F2Pool in 2013, which was one in every of China’s first Bitcoin mining swimming pools and is at the moment the fourth-largest with a market share of slightly below 10%, in accordance to mempool.area.
He went on to create the Ethereum staking pool supplier Stakefish in 2018, which beaconchain knowledge reveals is at the moment the eighth largest pool, boasting round 2,025 validators.
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After blasting off from Florida, it took Wang and his crew lower than half-hour to achieve the South Pole flying round 265 miles (430 kilometers) above the Earth. They’re anticipated to utterly circle the globe about each one and a half hours.
The SpaceX Dragon capsule will splash down off the coast of California after the mission ends, which would be the first for the corporate.
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