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Space burial is the launching of human remains into space. Missions may go into orbit around the Earth or to extraterrestrial bodies such as the Moon, or farther into space.
Celestis, Inc. is a company that launches cremated human remains into space, a procedure known as a space burial. It is a subsidiary of the private space company Space Services Inc. The company purchases launches as a secondary payload on various launch vehicles, and launches samples of a person's cremated remains. Launching an individual's entire cremated remains would be prohibitively expensive for most people, so Celestis launches small portions of 1-7 grams.
Astrobotic Technology is an American privately held company that is developing space robotics technology for lunar and planetary missions. It was founded in 2007 by Carnegie Mellon professor Red Whittaker and his associates with the goal of winning the Google Lunar X Prize. The company is based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The first launch of one of its spacecraft, the Peregrine lunar lander, is expected to take place in the first quarter of 2023.
A space tug is a type of spacecraft used to transfer spaceborne cargo from one orbit to another orbit with different energy characteristics. An example would be moving a spacecraft from a low Earth orbit (LEO) to a higher-energy orbit like a geostationary transfer orbit, a lunar transfer, or an escape trajectory.
The EELV Secondary Payload Adapter (ESPA) is an adapter for launching secondary payloads on orbital launch vehicles.
Technology Education Satellite (TechEdSat) is a successful nano-sat flight series conducted from the NASA Ames Research Center in collaboration with numerous universities. While one of the principal aims has been to introduce young professionals and university students to the practical realm of developing space flight hardware, considerable innovations have been introduced. In addition, this evolving flight platform has tested concepts for Low Earth Orbit (LEO) sample return, as well as planetary nano-sat class mission concepts.
Secondary payload, also known as rideshare payload, is a smaller-sized payload transported to orbit on a launch vehicle that is mostly paid for—and with the date and time of launch and the orbital trajectory determined—by the entity that contracts and pays for the primary launch. As a result, the secondary payload typically obtains a substantially reduced price for transportation services to orbit, by accepting a trade off of the loss of control once the contract is signed and the payload is delivered to the launch vehicle supplier for integration to the launch vehicle. These tradeoffs typically include having little or no control over the launch date/time, the final orbital parameters, or the ability to halt the launch and remove the payload should a payload failure occur during ground processing prior to launch, as the primary payload typically purchases all of these launch property rights via contract with the launch services provider.
Spaceflight Industries, Inc. is an American private aerospace company based out of Herndon, Virginia, that specializes in geospatial intelligence services. It sold its satellite rideshare business, Spaceflight, Inc., in June 2020.
Planet Labs PBC is an American public Earth imaging company based in San Francisco, California. Their goal is to image the entirety of the Earth daily to monitor changes and pinpoint trends.
Artemis 2 is the second scheduled mission of NASA's Artemis program, and the first scheduled crewed mission of NASA's Orion spacecraft, currently planned to be launched by the Space Launch System (SLS) in November 2024. The crewed Orion spacecraft will perform a lunar flyby test and return to Earth. Artemis 2 is planned to be the first crewed spacecraft to travel to the Moon, or beyond low Earth orbit, since Apollo 17 in 1972.
Electron is a two-stage, partially recoverable orbital launch vehicle developed by Rocket Lab, an American aerospace company with a wholly owned New Zealand subsidiary. Electron was developed to service the commercial small satellite launch market. Its Rutherford engines are the first electric-pump-fed engine to power an orbital-class rocket. Electron is often flown with a kickstage or Rocket Lab's Photon spacecraft. Although the rocket was designed to be expendable, Rocket Lab has recovered the first stage twice and is working towards the capability of reusing the booster. The Flight 26 (F26) booster has featured the first helicopter catch recovery attempt.
Tyvak Nano-Satellite Systems was an American company designing and building satellites. It started as a designer, builder and provider of nanosatellite and CubeSat space vehicle products and services for government and commercial customers. Tyvak was based in Irvine, California. It was a subsidiary of Terran Orbital Corporation. In 2022, it was announced that Tyvak would transition into larger satellites from nanosats and cubesats and the name Tyvak would be phased out in favor of the name of the parent company Terran Orbital.
SHERPA is a commercial satellite dispenser developed by Andrews Space, a subsidiary of Spaceflight Industries, and was unveiled in 2012. The maiden flight was on 3 December 2018 on a Falcon 9 Block 5 rocket, and it consisted of two separate unpropelled variants of the dispenser.
ArgoMoon is a CubeSat that was launched into a heliocentric orbit on Artemis 1, the maiden flight of the Space Launch System, on 16 November 2022 at 06:47:44 UTC. The objective of the ArgoMoon spacecraft is to take detailed images of the Interim Cryogenic Propulsion Stage following Orion separation, an operation that will demonstrate the ability of a cubesat to conduct precise proximity maneuvers in deep space.
USA-261, also referred to as Orbital Test Vehicle 4 (OTV-4) or AFSPC-5, is the second flight of the second Boeing X-37B, an American unmanned vertical-takeoff, horizontal-landing spaceplane. It was launched to low Earth orbit aboard an Atlas V rocket from Cape Canaveral on May 20, 2015. Its mission designation is part of the USA series.
Swarm Technologies, Inc. is a private company building a low Earth orbit satellite constellation for communications with Internet of things (IoT) devices using a store and forward design. Social Capital incubated Swarm, Craft Ventures was an early investor. On 16 July 2021, Swarm entered into an agreement to become a direct wholly-owned subsidiary of SpaceX.
A satellite dispenser is a space tug usually released from the upper stage of a rocket and designed to fly small secondary payloads to their desired location before deploying them.
Photon is a satellite bus based on Rocket Lab's kick stage.
SatRev S.A. is a Polish company established in 2016, that specialises in building small, lightweight, nanosatellites. The company was listed in the NASA's "State of the Art Small Spacecraft Technology" report as one of 12 in the world.
Space NTK is a space funeral company providing space burial services for the cremated remains of both human and pets. The company also conducts space pre-funeral by sending part of one's body such as nails and hair to space. Space NTK was founded by Tomoko Kasai in 2017.
References
- ↑ Michal Addady (24 August 2015). "This company is offering the first ever lunar burial". Fortune.
- 1 2 3 Debra Werner (16 May 2017). "A cubesat packed with cremated remains slotted for SpaceX rideshare mission". SpaceNews.
- 1 2 3 4 Darrell Etherington (16 May 2017). "Elysium Space to launch the first ever 'memorial spacecraft' via SpaceX". Tech Crunch.
- 1 2 Daniel Starkey (20 May 2017). "SpaceX Will Launch Human Remains Later This Year". Geek.com. Archived from the original on 11 August 2017. Retrieved 26 May 2017.
- ↑ Abigail Beall (16 May 2017). "You can now send your loved one's ashes into orbit on a SpaceX rocket". Wired UK.
- 1 2 Tim Reyes (23 August 2015). "Astrobotic Mission One Manifest". Tech Crunch.