Albany [New York], April 2: A 29-year-old robotics researcher from Berlin has become the first German woman in space, blasting off on board a SpaceX rocket.
Rabea Rogge was one of four "international adventurers" setting off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida in a launch broadcast live by SpaceX. According to the German Aerospace Center, Rogge is the 13th German national to achieve space flight - but the first woman among them.
During the three- to five-day mission on board SpaceX's Dragon capsule, the team will look at the Earth's polar regions to examine a phenomenon known as "Steve" involving purple ribbons in the sky, resembling the northern lights.
Rogge studied electrical engineering and information technology at ETH Zurich before transferring to the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, where she is completing her doctoral thesis.
She was invited on the flight by the Chinese-born Maltese national Chun Wang, a cryptocurrency billionaire who funded and commissioned the mission. Wang and Rogge reportedly met during training for an expedition to the northern Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard. A Norwegian filmmaker and an Australian polar explorer are also on board, but none of the crew members are trained astronauts or hold pilot licences.
SpaceX said the mission, called Fram2 after a 19th-century Norwegian polar research ship, will produce the first X-ray images of humans in space and investigate how mushrooms grow in zero gravity.
Source: Qatar Tribune
