160 People Wanted To Be Buried In Space. Their Capsule Slammed Into The Ocean Instead
The Nyx capsule, sent into space in collaboration with the space company SpaceX, crashed into the ocean after a successful launch due to a parachute failure.
The capsule, which left Vandenberg Space Force Base on June 23 last month, successfully entered the Earth’s atmosphere the next day but crashed into the Pacific Ocean, causing the cannabis and human remains it was carrying to sink into the ocean.
The cannabis plant was sent into space under a project called ‘Martian Grove’, which aimed to understand the process of growing a plant from a microgravity seed and the effects on survival in difficult conditions.
However, the purpose of sending human remains in cargo was to send these people off with honor.
A Texas company, Celestes, provided the remains of 166 people in the form of ashes to the spacecraft for space travel.
This is not the first time that Celestes has lost a payload. Earlier in 2023, when the ashes of a deceased NASA astronaut were being carried, the rocket exploded in the sky over New Mexico.
TEC apologized to its customers in a statement, saying that the company apologizes to all those who trusted it to hand over their payload.
The statement added that the company hopes that the families of these individuals will find peace in knowing that their loved ones were part of a historic journey that launched into space, orbited the Earth, and are now resting in the vastness of the Pacific Ocean.
The Nyx capsule and its launch were part of the ‘Mission Possible’ program led by German startup The Exploration Company (TEC).
