SpaceX flight bankrolled by crypto investor launches first manned polar orbit

Elon Musk’s SpaceX has sent a crew of four private astronauts on the first manned space flight to orbit the Earth’s poles, in a mission bankrolled and led by a wealthy crypto investor.

Chun Wang, the Chinese-born Maltese entrepreneur who founded the Bitcoin (BTC) mining pool F2Pool, paid for and is leading SpaceX’s “Fram2” mission, which is named after a 19th-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 will be the first human space mission to fly over the North and South poles.

Liftoff of Fram2 and the @framonauts! pic.twitter.com/XBL5juCnHQ

Wang hasn’t disclosed how much he paid SpaceX for the flight, but he brought along German polar scientist Rabea Rogge, Norwegian cinematographer Jannicke Mikkelsen and Australian Arctic adventurer Eric Philips.

SpaceX said the crew will also carry out 22 experiments — including taking the first X-ray in space and growing mushrooms — which are designed to inform on human health in space and the effects of long-duration space flight.

Chun Wang (right) onboard the SpaceX Dragon capsule with Jannicke Mikkelsen (center-right), Rabea Rogge (center-left) and Eric Philips (left). Source: SpaceX

Wang was born in China but said in 2023 that he became a citizen of Malta. He founded F2Pool in 2013, which was one of China’s first Bitcoin mining pools and is currently the fourth-largest with a market share of just under 10%, according to mempool.space.

He went on to create the Ethereum staking pool provider Stakefish in 2018, which beaconchain data shows is currently the eighth largest pool, boasting around 2,025 validators.

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After blasting off from Florida, it took Wang and his crew less than 30 minutes to reach the South Pole flying around 265 miles (430 kilometers) above the Earth. They’re expected to completely circle the globe about every one and a half hours.

The SpaceX Dragon capsule will splash down off the coast of California after the mission ends, which will be the first for the company.

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