Friday, 4 April 2025

Observing FRAM-2, a commercial crewed Dragon mission in Polar orbit

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The image above is a stack of twelve 4-second exposures taken with a Canon EOS 80D and EF 2.8/24 mm lens, and shows the Crew Dragon FRAM-2 passing over the domes of the historic Leiden Observatory in the evening of 2 April 2025.

FRAM-2 is a commercial ("space tourist") mission using a SpaceX Crew Dragon launched into a 90.0-degree inclined Polar Orbit at approximately 430 km altitude. It is the highest inclination of any crewed space mission so far. The spacecraft has four astronauts onboard: Chun Wang, Jannicke Mikkelsen, Rabea Rogge and Eric Philips.

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I observed the spacecraft on April 2 and 3, 2025. On April 2, on a 35-degree elevation evening twilight pass in the east, it reached magnitude +2.5 to +2.0. On April 3, on a high pass in the west, it was fainter, around +3.5 to +4.

Here is a single image from the series I shot on April 2 (4-second exposure at ISO 800):

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Below image is from the April 3 pass and shows both FRAM-2 and two Chinese satellites, as well as an unidentified object in a 49-50 degree orbit (possibly a Starlink or Starshield satellite). The "smudge" in the image is a lens reflection caused by the nearby moon:

 

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Here is a stack of 10 images from April 3:

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