SpaceX Announces First Manned Interstellar Mission with Wang Chun as Commander

SpaceX officially announced that Fram2 mission commander and co-founder of F2Pool, Wang Chun, will embark on Starship to undertake the company's first manned interplanetary spaceflight mission. According to the plan, this mission will last approximately two years, during which the spacecraft will exit the Earth-Moon system, pass by Mars, and then return to Earth.

For SpaceX, the manned Mars flyby signifies that Starship has officially entered the verification phase of long-duration manned missions into deep space, departing from low-Earth orbit and lunar circulation flights.

Prior to this, Wang Chun will first participate in the Starship's inaugural commercial manned lunar flyby mission with Dennis Tito and Akiko Tito. This mission is anticipated to last about a week, during which the spacecraft will pass close to the Moon (approximately 200 kilometers from the lunar surface), further verifying Starship's capabilities for deep-space and long-duration missions.

SpaceX highlighted in their announcement that since May 2020, the Dragon spacecraft has safely transported 78 crew members from 20 countries to and from space in 20 missions, including 7 commercial and private astronaut missions. Now, Starship is extending this mature commercial capacity for manned flights from low-Earth orbit to the Moon and Mars.

The First Chinese National to be Flown by Mars

Wang Chun, born in Tianjin, China, now holds Maltese nationality and is a cryptocurrency entrepreneur. He co-founded one of the world's largest bitcoin mining pools, F2Pool, which has cumulatively mined over 1.3 million bitcoins, accounting for more than 6% of the total historical quantity of bitcoin.

His fortune primarily stems from an early layout in the digital currency industry. In 2013, Wang Chun co-founded F2Pool with "Shen Yu," and subsequently established the blockchain staking service provider Stake.fish, gradually investing resources into the commercial space sector.

Wang Chun is not new to participating in manned spaceflights in a commercial capacity. At the end of March 2025, he fully funded and served as the commander for the Fram2 polar orbit flight mission, becoming the world's first entrepreneur to personally participate in and fully sponsor two commercial manned space missions.