Posts: 54418 From: Houston, TX Registered: Nov 1999
posted 04-04-2025 08:24 AM
From Jannicke Mikkelsen:
Proud to be able to bring to space some incredible cameras and lenses capturing the first images of the Arctic and Antarctic shot by humans from space. These videos are BIG in file size and we look forwards to sharing them with you post-mission splashdown.
I promised Svalbard I would wave to everyone there when I flew over them! Hi Svalbard, and particular thank you to our auroral scientists and photographers SolarMax Mission for participating in Fram2.
I know you are wondering how I brush my hair in space.
Robert Pearlman Editor
Posts: 54418 From: Houston, TX Registered: Nov 1999
posted 04-04-2025 08:35 AM
From Chun Wang:
I often say Fram2 is a Svalbard mission. We Framonauts all met on Svalbard, and we love the ice. The mission was planned when I lived there, and we fly polar because, in an ISS-like orbit, we are unable to see where we live. From this perspective, the mission has perfectly achieved its goal.
Flight Day 4
I woke up early and watched the launch of Starlink Group 11-13 on YouTube. Shortly after, SpaceX contacted us and informed us that we would be flying over Mongolia during the second stage deorbit burn. We opened the cupola and tried to observe the event, but had no luck. Still, we all enjoyed the view as we flew from the Bay of Bengal all the way to the Arctic.
Robert Pearlman Editor
Posts: 54418 From: Houston, TX Registered: Nov 1999
posted 04-04-2025 08:37 AM
From SpaceX:
After nearly four days of flying in a polar orbit to explore the Earth's polar regions for the first time, Dragon and the Fram2 crew will return to Earth on Friday, April 4, splashing down at approximately 9:19 a.m. PT [12:19 p.m. EST or 1619 GMT] off the coast of California. This will be the first Dragon human spaceflight mission to splash down in the Pacific Ocean as Dragon recovery returns to the West Coast.
A live webcast of this mission will begin about one hour prior to splashdown, which you can watch here and on X.
issman1 Member
Posts: 1163 From: UK Registered: Apr 2005
posted 04-04-2025 02:30 PM
Congratulations to SpaceX and the Fram2 crew. But I didn't see any point assessing how best to exit the Dragon capsule after only a few days in microgravity. Try that after half-a-year up there!
Better if some wealthy individual launches a global X-prize type of competition to develop artificial gravity systems for future interplanetary manned missions.
Incidentally, I did observe Dragon fly overhead from my location in the late evening of April 1. It was a novel experience in that I had never seen any manned spacecraft flying from North to South anywhere in England.
By comparison, ISS only ever traverses from a West or West South West direction.
Blackarrow Member
Posts: 3830 From: Belfast, United Kingdom Registered: Feb 2002
posted 04-04-2025 07:31 PM
...the first humans to splash down in the Pacific Ocean in more than 50 years... the prior crew to do so was NASA's Apollo astronauts as part of the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project in 1975.
After the ASTP splashdown, I remember writing in my diary that this would be the last time American astronauts would "ever" conclude a mission by splashing down in the sea. It is absolutely no disrespect to the versatile and efficient Dragon spacecraft that things haven't worked out as I assumed.
Robert Pearlman Editor
Posts: 54418 From: Houston, TX Registered: Nov 1999
posted 04-04-2025 07:34 PM
quote:Originally posted by issman1: I didn't see any point assessing how best to exit the Dragon capsule after only a few days in microgravity.
You have to start somewhere. NASA is not going to let SpaceX experiment with its crew members, or at least won't do so without NASA being in the lead. (The agency does its own post-landing exercises but does it after the crew has been assisted out of the capsule.)
If SpaceX can show NASA after several of its own crews that it can handle this type of test, then perhaps ISS astronauts will take part in the future.
posted 04-04-2025 08:24 AM
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