London: They wished to be buried in space along with cannabis seeds. Instead, their ashes ended up in the depth of the ocean.
A unique space capsule, carrying the ashes of 166 people, crashed into the Pacific Ocean after orbiting around the Earth.
A German startup launched the Nyx capsule on ‘Mission Possible’ on June 23.
The capsule completed two orbits before plummeting to Earth and dropping into the Pacific recently.
Celestis, a space burial company which was part of the mission, said they won’t be able to recover or return the flight capsules or ashes.
“We also recognise that no technical achievement replaces the profound personal meaning this service holds for our families,” Celestis co-founder and CEO Charles M Chafer said.
The Exploration Company (TEC), which created the capsule, claimed ‘partial success’ for Mission Possible.
“Our spacecraft Mission Possible achieved partial success (partial failure). The capsule was launched successfully, powered the payloads nominally in orbit, stabilised itself after separation from the launcher, re-entered and re-established communication after blackout,” TEC said in a post on LinkedIn.
Once the capsule returned to Earth’s orbit, it lost communication with the company for a few minutes before splash down, TEC informed.
Apologising to its clients who had trusted them with the remains of their loved ones, TEC said it was investigating the “root causes” of the sudden crash.
“We apologise to all our clients who entrusted us with their payloads. We thank our teams for their hard work and their dedication to success. We have been pushing boundaries in record time and cost. This partial success reflects both ambition and the inherent risks of innovation. Leveraging the technical milestones achieved yesterday and the lessons we will extract from our ongoing investigation, we will then prepare to re-fly as soon as possible,” the startup wrote.
