Cryptomillionaire Chun Wang financed and led the SpaceX space mission called Fram 2. The Crew Dragon flight with a civilian crew was sent into Earth orbit on the evening of March 31.
"Today we took 681st place among those who flew over the Karman line, and 626th among those who circled the Earth," Chun wrote on X.
The Karman line in space is a conditional 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 identified it, Theodore von Karman.
(Eric Philips, Yannike Mikkelsen, Chun Wang and Slave Patricia Rogge (from left to right) (Photo: SpaceX)
Chun Wang was born and raised in China, and then moved to South Korea. In August 2023, he announced that he had become a Maltese citizen.
Chun is one of the first bitcoin enthusiasts who started mining cryptocurrency back in 2011. Subsequently, he became the co-founder of the F2Pool mining pool, as well as the Snakefish validator and staking service.
P2pool accounts for one tenth (10.1%) of the total global bitcoin hashrate, according to the Hashrate Index as of April 1. According to this indicator, it ranks third in the world after the Foundry USA and Antpool pools.
The entrepreneur has always been interested in space flights. In 2007, Chun attended the launch of the Chinese lunar orbiter Chang'e-1. Starting in 2020, he visits the Starbase test launch site every year to observe all the flights of the Starship system.
(The Frame2 mission crew. Source: Space.com)
Chun keeps meticulous statistics on his travels. The profile of the X cryptomillionaire says that he has visited 135 of the 249 countries (54%), which he keeps records of according to the ISO 3166 standard classifier. The businessman said that the flight with the Fram 2 mission was his thousandth in his entire life.
Chun was appointed "mission commander" for Fram2, although this is his first time in space. He will be accompanied in flight at a speed of 27,589 km/h at an altitude of 435 km by Rabea Patricia Rogge, a scientist in the field of Arctic robotics from Germany, Eric Philips, an Australian polar researcher and doctor, and Yannike Mikkelsen, a filmmaker from Norway.
The ship will fly over the polar regions of the Earth for the first time. The crew is preparing to see the northern Lights, and Mikkelsen will try to capture the colorful lighting effects. This mission is expected to last three to five days and end with a landing in the Pacific Ocean.
During the mission, the spacecraft's team will conduct 22 research experiments designed to help "empower humanity in long-term space exploration and understanding human health in space," writes The Block. Among the experiments are obtaining the first X—ray image in space and growing oyster mushrooms in microgravity.
Last week, Ripple co-founder Jed McCaleb admitted that he was ready to lose $1 billion to launch a private space station. His company Vast plans to launch a space station into orbit by May 2026, and if successful, it will be able to apply for a contract with NASA.
