SpaceX launches private Fram2 astronauts on first spaceflight over Earth's poles

“A short 2.5 minutes after liftoff, the Falcon 9's first-stage booster shut down its nine Merlin engines, executed stage separation from the rest of the rocket and performed a deceleration burn to put itself on a trajectory to land on SpaceX's Just Read the Instructions droneship in the Atlantic Ocean, which happened on schedule about 5.5 minutes later.”

Super cool!

My son and I were just out walking and saw this. First the flaming, trailing launch vehicle(?). A min after that faded there was the glowing warped ring of the craft exiting the atmosphere.

The crypto billionaire "commander" is an interesting character: "Wang was born in China but lives primarily in Svalbard and since 2023 is also a citizen of Malta and Saint Kitts and Nevis through their golden visa programs. Wang will be in command of the mission, [vehicle commander] Mikkelsen will be in command of the spacecraft with the traditional operating duties given to a typical NASA commander."