SAN DIEGO — Four space tourists who orbited the north and south poles returned to Earth on Friday, splashing down in the Pacific to end their privately funded polar tour.
Bitcoin investor Chun Wang chartered a SpaceX flight for himself and three others in a Dragon capsule that was outfitted with a domed window that provided 360-degree views of the polar caps and everything in between. Wang declined to say how much he paid for the 3 1/2-day trip.
Watch live coverage of landing on SpaceX X account:
https://t.co/ERTGAPK49M
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) April 4, 2025
The quartet, who rocketed from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center on Monday night, returned off the Southern California coast. It was the first human spaceflight to circle the globe above the poles and the first Pacific splashdown for a space crew in 50 years.
The Chinese-born Wang, now a citizen of Malta, invited Norwegian filmmaker Jannicke Mikkelsen, German robotics researcher Rabea Rogge and Australian polar guide Eric Philips, all of whom shared stunning vistas during their voyage.
“It is so epic because it is another kind of desert, so it just goes on and on and on all the way,” Rogge said in a video posted by Wang on X while gazing down from orbit.
Mikkelsen packed the capsule with camera equipment and spent much of her time behind the lens.
All four suffered from space motion sickness after reaching orbit, according to Wang. But by the time they woke up on day two, they felt fine and cranked open the window cover right above the South Pole, he said via X.
Besides documenting the poles from 270 miles (430 kilometers) up, Wang and his crew took the first medical X-rays in space as part of a test and conducted two dozen other science experiments. They named their trip Fram2 after the Norwegian sailing ship that carried explorers to the poles more than a century ago. A bit of the original ship’s wooden deck accompanied the crew to space.
SpaceX said its decision to switch splashdown sites from Florida beginning with this flight was based on safety. The company said Pacific splashdowns will ensure that any surviving pieces of the trunk — jettisoned near flight’s end — falls into the ocean.
The last people to return from space to the Pacific were the three NASA astronauts assigned to the 1975 Apollo-Soyuz mission.
Credit: AP
The landing was scheduled for 9:19 am on Friday, April 4 just off the coast of Oceanside, CA in north San Diego County.
This will be the first Dragon human spaceflight mission to splash down in the Pacific Ocean as Dragon recovery returns to the West Coast, according to SpaceX.
A live webcast of this mission will begin about one hour prior to splashdown, which you can watch on SpaceX.com.
Previous Falcon 9 launches were live-streamed on the company's website.
WATCH THE REPLAY OF THE FEBRUARY 10 LAUNCH:
Watch Falcon 9 launch 23 @Starlink satellites to orbit from California https://t.co/5EG6JJEAcZ
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) February 7, 2025
WATCH: February 10 launch was captured flying over 4S Ranch:
PHOTOS | SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket seen across San Diego County
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Nichole Hendricks
Credit: Nichole Hendricks
According to SpaceX, Falcon 9 is a “reusable, two-stage rocket designed and manufactured by SpaceX for the reliable and safe transport of people and payloads into Earth orbit and beyond.”
Falcon 9 is considered the world’s first orbital-class reusable rocket.
Starlink is "the world's first and largest satellite constellation using a low Earth orbit to deliver broadband internet capable of supporting streaming, online gaming, video calls and more," according to the service's website.
The "constellation" of satellites consists of thousands of satellites that orbit Earth at an altitude of about 550 km, or 341 3/4 miles.
The satellites connect to antennas that users set up at their homes to provide internet access.
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