Four space tourists return to Earth after a private flight over the poles

[edwest4]

Four space tourists return to Earth after a private flight over the poles

Four space tourists are back on Earth after orbiting over the north and south poles. Their SpaceX capsule splashed down in the Pacific off the Southern California coast on Friday.

apnews.com

 

[Scott Kenny]

Not gonna lie, if I had the $$ I'd do that.

 

[BlackBat242]

While CNN and AP called the crew "4 space tourists", they actually were a working crew... The crew are all private astronauts, including Mission Commander Chun Wang (a Chinese-born, Maltese entrepreneur), Vehicle Commander Jannicke Mikkelsen (Norway), Mission Pilot Rabea Rogge (Germany) and Medical Officer and Mission Specialist Eric Phillips (Australia). Each crew member is a seasoned polar explorer and brings their own unique specialty to the mission objective of exploring the polar regions of our planet from low-Earth orbit.

"With the same pioneering spirit as early polar explorers, we aim to bring back new data and knowledge to advance the long-term goals of space exploration," says Chun Wang (Mission Commander) in a recent press release "Much like Fridtjof Nansen (the leader of the original Fram polar expedition), the science and research projects onboard will inform how we prepare for future missions, ultimately helping make space more accessible to us all."

The mission is the first crewed spaceflight launch to attain a true polar orbit. The previous record-holders occurred during the Soviet Union's early Vostok missions; the 1990 STS-36 Space Shuttle Atlantis mission also reached an orbital inclination of 62 degrees.

The reason missions tend to avoid the poles are twofold: one, it takes much more energy to reach a high-inclination orbit, instead of simply launching eastward and having Earth's rotational velocity help push. Second, higher-inclination flights are also subjected to higher radiation levels. Increased radiation levels also occur on trans-continental airplane flights over polar regions.

This situation also mimics what astronauts on deep-space missions would experience. To this end, Fram2 has 22 science and research experiments onboard, which will mostly address issues involving biology and physiological issues surrounding human spaceflight. Cinematographer Jannicke Mikkelsen is also documenting the flights over the poles. The spacecraft itself has a forward cupola viewport installed in place of the usual combination nosecone and docking-hatch that the Crew Dragon uses for arrival at the International Space Station.

Observing auroral activity, as well as the non-auroral Strong Thermal Emission Velocity Enhancement (STEVE) phenomenon is also a stated objective for the mission. The crew should get a good show: not only have we just crossed over the equinox, when auroral activity is enhanced due to the Russell-Mcpherron effect, but also the massive X-class-flare-producing sunspot group, active region AR4048, is rotating earthward this week.

Splashdown of the Crew Dragon capsule was at 12:19 EDT today.