More than 100 capsules containing cremated human corpse have been recovered after a rocket carrying the ashes for a space memorial service exploded over the New Mexico desert .
Up Aerospace launched its suborbital rocket on Monday at 12:45 p.m. ET from Spaceport America . The rocket was carry over a 12 student experimentation payloads for NASA , as well as the cremate remains of a belated NASA astronaut and a pill pusher , among others , whose families had sent them off for a suborbital memorial service . About three seconds after liftoff , however , the skyrocket put up a fatal anomalythat caused it to blow up .
implausibly , the cremated ash survived the explosion and have been recovered , according to blank space memorial service Celestis . “ All 120 flying capsules are safely in the hands of launching personnel department and will be returned to us awaiting our next flight , ” Charles Chafer , Celestis co - founding father and CEO , explained in an emailed financial statement . “ While the rocket was put down in flight of steps , the attention and professionalism of our launch serve supplier — Up Aerospace — ensured that the Celestis load was unscathed and will be able-bodied to be relaunched . ”
The UP Aerospace rocket shortly before its exploded on Monday, 10 February 2025.Screenshot: KVIA
The Texas - based company , which specialize in launching human remains to space , design its missions to guarantee there ’s a decorous luck of recovering the payloads should the Eruca sativa give out to reach blank , according to Chafer .
Celestis ’s Aurora Flight mission included the cremated remain ofNASA astronaut Philip K. Chapman , who died in April 2021 , as well as chemist Louise Ann O’Deen . The recovered payloads will get to fly again on board the ship’s company ’s next delegation , Perseverance Flight , which will be scheduled to take blank space “ as presently as UP and Spaceport America nail their probe and any required jam are implemented , ” Chafer said .
The rocket was also packed with 13 load from NASA’sTechRise Student Challenge — a serial publication of science and applied science experiments make by students from the sixth to 12th grades . But NASA is not seem to recover its freight , and is instead prognosticate to launch other TechRise experiments in the future .
“ Each of these TechRise student teams should be gallant of their accomplishment in delivering an experimentation for launch and we will be working on future chance for them to see their experiments in quad , ” Christopher Baker , computer program executive for the Flight Opportunities broadcast at NASA ’s Space Technology Mission Directorate , said in astatement .
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