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.

SpaceX is about to launch its first private human spaceflight mission in nearly seven months. The mission, set to lift off on Monday evening, will use a Falcon 9 rocket and Crew Dragon spacecraft to send four civilians into a polar orbit, in what will be a first for a human spaceflight mission.