The spaceship will fly over the poles of the Earth for the first time, one of the goals of the flight was to be able to observe the polar lights from space

Cryptomillionaire Chun Wang has funded and led SpaceX's space mission called Fram2. The Crew Dragon spacecraft carrying a civilian crew was launched into Earth's orbit on the evening of March 31.

“Today we ranked 681st among those who flew over the Kármán line and 626th among those who circled the Earth,” Chun wrote in X.

 The Kármán line in space is a conventional boundary between the Earth's atmosphere and outer space, located at an altitude of 100 km above sea level. The line was named after the scientist who defined it - Theodor von Kármán

Chun Wang was born and raised in China before moving to South Korea. In August 2023, he announced that he became a citizen of Malta. Chun is one of the first bitcoin enthusiasts who started mining the cryptocurrency back in 2011. He subsequently co-founded the F2Pool mining pool, as well as the validator and staking service Stakefish.

F2Pool accounts for one-tenth (10.1%) of the global bitcoin hashrate, according to the Hashrate Index as of April 1. It ranks third globally after Foundry USA and Antpool pools.

The entrepreneur has always been interested in space missions. In 2007, Chung attended the launch of China's “Chang'e-1” lunar orbiter. Since 2020, he has been visiting the Starbase test spaceport every year to observe all Starship missions.

Chung keeps meticulous statistics of his travels. The crypto millionaire's X profile states that he has visited 135 out of 249 countries (54%), which he keeps track of using the ISO 3166 standard classifier. The businessman stated that the Fram2 mission flight was his 1,000th in his lifetime.

Chung has been appointed “mission commander” for Fram2, although it is his first time in space. Accompanying him on the 27,589 km/h flight at an altitude of 435 kilometers will be Arctic robotics scientist Rabea Patricia Rogge from Germany, Australian polar explorer and physician Eric Phillips and filmmaker Jannike Mikkelsen from Norway.

The spaceship will fly over the Earth's polar regions for the first time. The crew is preparing to see the northern lights, and Mikkelsen will try to capture the colorful lighting effects. The mission is expected to last three to five days and end with a landing in the Pacific Ocean.

During it, the ship's crew will conduct 22 research experiments designed to help “advance humanity's ability to extend long-term space exploration and understanding of human health in space,” The Block writes. Among the experiments are taking the first X-ray image in space and growing oyster mushrooms in microgravity.

Last week, Ripple co-founder Jed McCaleb admitted that he is ready to lose $1 billion to launch a private space station. His company Vast plans to put a space station into orbit by May 2026, and in case of success will be able to qualify for a contract with NASA.