Polar Explorers

The Fram2 mission is the first human mission to a polar orbit. There will be more.

SpaceX have continued to push the boundaries of human spaceflight, flying the first human mission to a polar orbit. Fram2 flew 90 degrees to the equator, giving astronauts the first view of the poles with their own eyes.

Credit: SpaceX

The highest inclination missions that have been flown before this are the dual missions of Vostok 3 through 6 in 1962 and 1963. Being a long way from being able to rendezvous and dock, and the Vostok spacecraft indeed having no way to change its orbit, the Soviets wanted to give the impression they were working towards multiple spacecraft missions by launch pairs of capsules into relatively close orbits.

One aspect of the polar orbit of Fram2 that interests me is that it flew in a more dangerous radiation environment than lower inclination missions, although its short duration and low (200x400km) orbit minimised this. Around the poles, what protection the Earth’s magnetic field does provide against cosmic rays is absent, and more importantly for short duration missions it is where energetic particles are funneled during a solar proton event. For at least one previous proposal for a polar mission, this could have proved deadly.

The Manned Orbiting Laboratory

The Manned Orbiting Laboratory program (MOL) in the 1960s was essentially an attempt at producing a manned spy satellite. It consisted of a small space station attached to the rear of a modified Gemini capsule, and would fly up as a single unit with its crew of 2 aboard. They would launch into a sun-synchronous polar orbit, stay for 30 days conducting observations of the enemies of the United States, and then detach the capsule and fly home. No docking was involved; the capsule had been redesigned with a hatch in the rear, through the heat shield, which allowed the crew to move between it and the station.