The rocket from Elon Musk's space company Space X took off at 03:46 Swedish time from Cape Canaveral in Florida. Then it set off towards the South Pole, a journey that from southern USA only takes about half an hour.
The self-driving capsule will then continue for five days in a unique orbit around the Earth, which means that the quartet on board will get a good view of both the South and North Poles. One lap around the planet takes about one and a half hours, which can also be expressed as the one-way trip South Pole-North Pole takes 46 minutes.
A few hours after launch, Space X began publishing images of the polar regions taken from the probe.
"Great pride"
The trio invited along is Rabea Rogge from Germany, Australian Eric Philips, and film director Jannicke Mikkelsen – who is now the first person from Norway to travel to space.
It's completely crazy. This is a historic day, says Mikkelsen's press contact Stig Karlsen to the Norwegian news agency NTB after the launch.
He followed along with Mikkelsen's closest relatives and friends at the launch site in Florida.
Before departure, she herself sent a text message saying "it is with great pride that I prepare to become Norway's first representative in space, with the Norwegian flag on my suit".
Named after polar ship
The journey is a dream come true for Chun Wang, a Chinese-born bitcoin investor who now resides in Malta. He has visited the Earth's poles on the ground and now wants to study and document them from space.
The project has a clear Norwegian touch. The capsule is named Fram 2, after the Norwegian research vessel Fram used by the legendary polar explorers Fridtjof Nansen and Roald Amundsen between 1893 and 1912.
Fram now has its own museum in Oslo. The head there, Geir Klover, says according to the news agency AP that he hopes the Fram 2 project will remind people of climate change – and that humanity must try to stop the polar ice caps' continued melting.
