The astronauts currently orbiting both polar regions — the first humans to ever do so — are asking for help from photographers on terra firma.
The Fram2 mission currently being conducted on a SpaceX Crew Dragon Resilience is the first-ever manned spacecraft to orbit both poles.
Katie Herlingshaw of the University Centre in Svalbard tells SpaceWeather that she is working with the Fram2 astronauts on an aurora project called SolarMaX and the project needs the help of photographers on the ground.
“We’re going to be warning the crew when there are auroras coming up in their orbit — especially the ‘weird auroras’ we are interested in such as fragments, STEVE, streaks, and continuum aurora,” says Herlingshaw.
“We need photographers to submit their pictures of auroras. We are especially interested in times when Fram2 passes overhead a location with auroras present. This will allow us to triangulate the auroral features using the photographs from the ground and also from space.”
Herlingshaw wants photographers to submit their photos to Fram2 via the Skywarden website.
“To make the photos useful, people should collect the correct camera time (to the second if possible) and their location for the observations,” she tells SpaceWeather. “We can’t use the photo for research unless it has the correct time and location.”
Even amateur photographers or those who only have access to a smartphone can take part in the mission. There are many individuals, scientists, citizen scientists, instrument owners, networks, and even Antarctic bases that are involved in the project.
The Fram2 mission launched onboard a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft which has a 360-degree cupola module attached allowing them to take plenty of photos of auroras down below. The glass dome is 2,000 square inches making it the largest single window ever flown to space.
First views of Earth’s polar regions from Dragon pic.twitter.com/3taP34zCeN
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) April 1, 2025
The crew is expected to be in space for the next few days. It is not just in orbit to take pretty pictures, it will conduct almost two dozen science experiments. One of them includes the first-ever attempt to grow mushrooms in space.
