SpaceX's private Fram2 launch over Earth's poles will send astronauts where no one has gone before

The Arctic is captured in this 2010 visualization using data from NASA’s Aqua satellite.

SpaceX's Fram2 astronaut mission is all set to lift off toward a polar orbit, marking a dramatic departure from every crewed spaceflight that has come before. But why has this never been done before?

The privately funded Fram2 mission — named for the Norwegian seafaring ship Fram ("Forward" in Norwegian), which explored the Arctic and Antarctic in the late 19th and early 20th centuries — will launch on a Falcon 9 rocket and use SpaceX's Crew Dragon capsule Resilience to carry four astronauts into a polar orbit for the first time. Launch is targeted for no earlier than March 31, flying at an altitude of between 249 and 264 miles (425 to 450 kilometers).