The latest private space mission has launched four astronauts into a sideways orbit that has never been attempted before with a crewed spacecraft. At 9:46 pm EDT, the Fram2 mission lifted off atop a Falcon 9 from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Fram2, named after the famous polar exploration ship Fram, is not the first privately funded and conducted spaceflight but it is historic because it has accomplished something that no other crewed space mission has done. Using a chartered SpaceX Dragon capsule and Falcon 9 launcher, the crew of four lifted off from Launch Complex 39A at Kennedy. However, instead of flying in the direction of the Earth's rotation to gain more momentum, it turned due south.

What's significant about this is that most crewed missions have followed orbits inclined to the equator at an angle between 28.5° and 51.6°. The largest inclination in history was in 1963 when the Soviet Vostok 6 mission with Valentina Tereshkova, the first woman to travel to space, aboard reached an inclination of 65°, or about that of Fairbanks, Alaska. That record has now been broken as Fram2 reached an inclination of 90°, or at right angles to the equator.