SpaceX launches private astronaut crew in Fram2 polar-orbiting mission

Elon Musk's SpaceX on Monday launched a crew of four private astronauts led by a crypto entrepreneur on a mission to orbit Earth from pole to pole, a novel trajectory in which no humans have traveled before, Reuters reports. 

Maltese investor Chun Wang, a Chinese-born magnate who founded a bitcoin mining company, is the bankroller and commander of the SpaceX mission, named Fram2, a reference to the Norwegian "Fram" ship that pioneered Arctic exploration at the turn of the 20th century.

Wang and three associates launched aboard SpaceX's Crew Dragon capsule at 9:47 p.m. EDT on Monday (0147 GMT on Tuesday) from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, setting off for a free-flying mission for three to five days, during which they will partake in 22 research experiments largely centered on how spaceflight and microgravity affect the human body.