The private Fram2 mission lifted off atop a Falcon 9 rocket from Launch Complex-39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida today (March 31) at 9:46 p.m. EDT (0146 GMT on April 1), sending the Crew Dragon capsule "Resilience" into a polar orbit with a quartet of spaceflight rookies aboard.

A SpaceX spacecraft carrying four astronauts is on a pioneering journey circling Earth over its poles after launching Monday night from Florida.

The crew will observe Earth's polar regions 430 kilometers above the surface, allowing the Crew Dragon Resilience to travel from the North to South Pole under an hour.

A unique mission called Fram2, paid for and led by a cryptocurrency billionaire who is flying with three guests, is set to lift off to carry the crew into an orbit around the North and South poles. Follow live news updates.

Chun Wang, a Chinese-born crypto entrepreneur, paid an undisclosed amount for the mission. Some satellites are already in polar orbit, and researchers called it a routine flight.

Elon Musk's SpaceX on Monday launched a crew of four private astronauts led by a crypto entrepreneur on a mission to orbit Earth from pole to pole, a novel trajectory in which no humans have traveled before.