Space Mission Loses Remains of 160 People

The relatives of around 160 people sent their ashes on a journey to space and back—but they won't be getting them back. The Exploration Company's "Mission Possible" Nyx capsule, launched on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket June 23, successfully re-entered the atmosphere the next day but it crashed into the Pacific Ocean after landing parachutes failed to deploy, Popular Mechanics reports. It was carrying remains that loved ones had sent through Celestis Memorial Spaceflights.

• Celestis, based in Texas, offers different tiers of space memorials, including launching remains into deep space and, in this case, an "Earth Rise" package to launch a "symbolic portion of cremated remains or DNA to space," Space.com reports. "After experiencing the zero gravity environment, the individual flight capsules and modules are returned to Earth and delivered to the family as a flown keepsake," the company says on its website.

• The Exploration Company said the capsule completed two orbits of Earth but on its return trajectory, "an anomaly occurred and the vehicle was lost shortly after re-entry," People reports. The capsule crashed into the ocean, "dispersing its contents at sea," the company said.
• "Though we currently believe that we cannot return the flight capsules, we hope families will find some peace in knowing their loved ones were part of a historic journey, launched into space, orbited Earth, and are now resting in the vastness of the Pacific, akin to a traditional and honored sea scattering," the company said.
• The capsule was also carrying cannabis plant matter and seeds from the Martian Grow project, Gizmodo reports. The open-source citizen science project, which aims to grow pot on Mars, had sought to study how low-Earth orbit affects the plant' germination and resilience. "Cannabis is resilient, multipurpose, and biologically complex—making it ideal for studying how life adapts to extreme environments like space or Mars," the project says.