{"id":18956,"date":"2017-05-16T17:56:36","date_gmt":"2017-05-16T09:56:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/elysium-space-and-seattles-spaceflight-plan-to-spread-loved-ones-ashes-in-orbit\/"},"modified":"2017-05-16T17:56:36","modified_gmt":"2017-05-16T09:56:36","slug":"elysium-space-and-seattles-spaceflight-plan-to-spread-loved-ones-ashes-in-orbit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/elysium-space-and-seattles-spaceflight-plan-to-spread-loved-ones-ashes-in-orbit\/","title":{"rendered":"Elysium Space and Seattle\u2019s Spaceflight plan to spread loved ones\u2019 ashes in orbit"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Elysium
Elysium Space says its memorial payload will eventually burn up in the atmosphere. (Elysium Space Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Elysium Space has struck a deal to give people an out-of-this-world memorial by sending their cremated remains into orbit.<\/p>\n

The startup, headquartered in San Francisco, announced today that its Elysium Star II memorial spacecraft is due to be launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California next year aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, as part of a dedicated rideshare mission organized by Seattle-based Spaceflight.<\/p>\n

About 100 people have signed up so far to have their loved ones\u2019 ashes sent into sun-synchronous orbit so far, but spots are still available for the upcoming launch, at prices starting at $2,490.<\/p>\n

The cost includes a ride to space, along with a smartphone app that shows where the spacecraft is in real time. The remains will orbit Earth for two years before re-entering the atmosphere as a shooting star, Elysium said.<\/p>\n

Spaceflight says next year\u2019s SSO-A rideshare mission is booked to 90 percent capacity, with more than 20 payloads from around the world. Among the other payloads is KNACKSAT, the first satellite fully built in Thailand by a university team.<\/p>\n

Elysium also has a deal with Pittsburgh-based Astrobotic to send remains to the moon, for a price as low as $9,950, but Astrobotic\u2019s lunar mission hasn\u2019t yet been scheduled.<\/p>\n

Elysium isn\u2019t the first company sending cremated remains into space. A Houston-based venture known as Celestis has been doing it for 20 years. Celestis\u2019 clients have included Gene Roddenberry and James \u201cScotty\u201d Doohan of Star Trek fame, as well as Mercury\/Gemini astronaut Gordon Cooper.<\/p>\n

Celestis has three ride-along flights on its manifest for this year: a suborbital launch from New Mexico on an UP Aerospace rocket; an orbital launch from Florida on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket; and a mission to the moon, to be launched from New Zealand on Rocket Lab\u2019s Electron rocket as part of a deal with Moon Express.<\/p>\n

Rocket Lab says it will conduct its first test launch in preparation for the lunar mission next week.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Elysium Space says its memorial payload will eventually burn up in the atmosphere. (Elysium Space Photo) Elysium Space has struck a deal to give people an out-of-this-world memorial by sending their cremated remains into orbit. The startup, headquartered in San Francisco, announced today that its Elysium Star II memorial spacecraft is due to be launched from Vandenberg Air […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[5408,2340,2341],"class_list":["post-18956","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-elysium-space","tag-spaceflight","tag-spaceflight-industries"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18956"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18956"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18956\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18956"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18956"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18956"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}