F2Pool co-founder Chun Wang has been named Mission Commander for SpaceX’s first crewed interplanetary Starship flight, a roughly two-year mission targeting a high-altitude Mars flyby without landing.
Key Takeaways:
SpaceX named F2Pool co-founder Chun Wang Mission Commander for its first crewed interplanetary Starship flight in 2026.F2Pool controls 11.32% of Bitcoin’s global hashrate at 110.86 EH/s, producing 114 blocks over the past week, according mempool.space stats.Wang takes a two-year leave from F2Pool, previously commanding the Fram2 polar orbit mission aboard Crew Dragon in 2025.The upcoming interplanetary flight will use Starship’s V3 architecture, built for high payload capacity, reusability, and in-space refueling. Those capabilities are central to Elon Musk’s stated goal of placing approximately one million people on Mars over the coming decades. Wang’s mission will generate data that informs those later, more ambitious flights.
The Mars flyby mission carries real risks. Crew members will face extended microgravity exposure, elevated radiation levels, psychological stress from isolation, cryogenic fuel management challenges, and the need for hardware reliability over a multi-year flight. The mission is designed to surface those variables and address them before any landing attempt is made.
SpaceX’s Starship program continues flight testing and V3 upgrades in parallel with mission planning. Wang’s appointment confirms that the company is moving forward with crewed interplanetary timelines on the commercial side, separate from any government contract.
