Rabea Rogge, LB9NJ/KD3AID, a private astronaut on the crew of the Fram2 mission, has conducted the first amateur radio contacts from aboard a SpaceX Dragon capsule. The Fram2 flight sets many firsts, including being the first crewed mission to do polar orbits of the Earth, and Rogge became the first German woman in space.

The mission is funded and commanded by cryptocurrency billionaire Chun Wang. He wrote on X (formerly Twitter) about the first day of the mission, “Rabea spent some time on the ham radio, making contact with Berlin.”

Rogge is using a battery powered Icom IC-705 aboard the flight. She’s transmitting SSTV images on 437.550 MHz for a youth amateur radio competition called Fram2Ham. Rogge will send images from polar regions that have been broken into digital puzzle pieces, which students must assemble.

More information can be found on www.fram2ham.com.