A Bitcoin tycoon has blasted off on a SpaceX rocket in what is the first manned spacecraft to circle Earth over the North and South poles.
The fully automated Dragon capsule will take about 46 minutes to fly its pole-to-pole trajectory and roughly 90 minutes to go around the Earth completely.
It launched from Kennedy Space Centre in Florida on Monday night on SpaceX’s sixth private mission – and is now orbiting 272 miles above Earth at 17,000mph.
China-born Chun Wang, who made his fortune mining Bitcoin, paid an undisclosed amount for the bespoke mission.
However, a spot in the reusable Dragon spacecraft reportedly cost $55m (£42m) per seat. Mr Wang, who is bankrolling the trip, has taken along three friends.
German robotics researcher Rabea Rogge, Norwegian filmmaker Jannicke Mikkelsen, and Australian polar guide Eric Philips are also on board.
The Falcon 9 rocket powered the capsule into orbit from Kennedy Space Centre. Pic: Reuters
The crew will conduct 22 experiments, including the first human X-rays in space and growing mushrooms in microgravity, during a trip of between three and five days.
No space traveller has – until now – gone beyond 65 degrees latitude north and south – just shy of the Arctic and Antarctic Circles.
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The first woman in space, the Soviet Union’s Valentina Tereshkova, set that mark in 1963. Mikkelsen also flew the route , but at a much lower altitude in a Gulfstream jet, in 2019.
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The Dragon capsule is positioned on the tip of a Falcon9 rocket. Pic: Reuters
The mission is named Fram2, a nod to a pioneering Norwegian polar research ship from more than 100 years ago.
As the space tourists headed to the launchpad under police escort, they also witnessed SpaceX launching another Falcon 9 rocket in an unrelated mission for the Starlink internet project.
“We’re gonna watch a rocket launch while on our way to a rocket launch,” Wang wrote on X.
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He said he had scheduled the space trip to be his 1,000th total flight as he tries to complete an ambition to visit every country on Earth.
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