Rabea Rogge: Germany's first female astronaut is soon to fly into space
The first German astronaut, Rabea Rogge, flies into space on a SpaceX mission. She is financed by crypto billionaire Chun Wang.
Rabea Rogge
(Image: DLR)
After twelve men, a German woman is to fly into space for the first time: Rabea Rogge will be part of the crew of a private space mission, which is due to launch at the beginning of next week.
Fram2 is due to be launched from the Kennedy Space Center in the US state of Florida in the late evening of March 31 (local time). The four-person crew, under the command of crypto billionaire Chun Wang, will fly on SpaceX's Crew Dragon. A Falcon 9 rocket is to launch the US space company SpaceX's spacecraft into orbit.
The mission is named after the Norwegian research vessel Fram, which Fridtjof Nansen and Roald Amundsen used for expeditions to the Arctic and Antarctic. There is a reason for this: the Crew Dragon will orbit the Earth at an altitude of around 430 kilometers in a polar orbit. It will be the first time that humans have flown over the polar regions in a low earth orbit (LEO). The mission with the highest orbital inclination to date remained just below the Arctic Circle.
The Crew Dragon gets a panoramic window
Fram2 will be SpaceX's sixth privately financed mission. The Crew Dragon Resilience is expected to be used. For the mission, the adapter for docking with the ISS will be removed and replaced with a panoramic window to give the crew a view of the Earth.
The initiator of Fram2 is Chun Wang, who became rich by investing in the cryptocurrency Bitcoin. The Chinese national, who lives in Malta, is financing the mission and is also its commander.
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The scientific director is Rabea Rogge. The electrical engineer and polar researcher from Berlin is currently writing about autonomous boats for the Arctic Ocean at the University of Trondheim. She will be the first German woman to fly into space. Twelve men, most recently Alexander Gerst and Matthias Maurer, have been in space before her.
The crew also includes Norwegian filmmaker Jannicke Mikkelsen, who will act as capsule commander, and Eric Philips. The Australian polar explorer is the pilot of the mission. All four are flying into space for the first time.
The crew will orbit the earth for three to five days
Fram2 will last three to five days. During this time, the crew will carry out 22 scientific experiments. Many of them have to do with improving human health and performance in space, for example with exercises to maintain muscles and bones.
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The program includes growing mushrooms in near weightlessness. Finally, the four are to investigate an atmospheric optical phenomenon called Strong Thermal Emission Velocity Enhancement (STEVE). This is a luminous band of hot plasma that occurs at an altitude of 400 to 500 kilometers above the Earth.
(wpl)
