A dog's ashes were among the remains sent into space this weekend as part of a memorial mission honouring loved ones by carrying them beyond Earth's atmosphere.
Franz, a beloved family Labrador, was among 166 small capsules launched aboard the inaugural Perseverance SpaceX Flight by Texas-based Celestis Inc. The mission lifted off Sunday around 5:30 pm from Vandenberg Space Force Base in Santa Barbara, California.
Franz died aged 13 in October 2020. "He was the best dog, just so soft and nice and loved hugs," said the dog's owner Harvin Moore.
The pet was more like a sibling to Mr Moore's children, Elizabeth and Quinn. "Now we can't wait to watch our good boy go galactic," he told The NY Post ahead of the launch.
The flight lasted about three hours, during which the capsules orbited Earth twice. The rocket then re-entered the atmosphere and splashed down in the Pacific Ocean somewhere between Alaska and Hawaii.
A recovery ship, stationed at sea ahead of time, tracked and retrieved the capsules before sending them to Germany for processing. Within two months, the remains will be returned to their families.
The cost to send each capsule into space was $3,500 (over Rs 3 lakh). For Franz's owner, the expense was "a lot more" than the dog's value, but entirely worth it for his family of space enthusiasts.
Mr Moore said, "The emotional power of being with a group of people who are celebrating the life of a loved one in this way ... it's amazing. It's nothing we'll ever forget. It's just pure joy."
Houston-based Celestis has a long history of sending DNA and cremated remains of people, pets, and celebrities into space using rockets like United Launch Alliance's Vulcan Centaur.
Their missions have carried iconic figures such as "Star Trek" legends Nichelle Nichols, DeForest Kelley, Gene Roddenberry and his wife Majel Barrett Roddenberry, and James "Scotty" Doohan. They also flew Douglas Trumbull, a visual effects pioneer behind 2001: A Space Odyssey and Close Encounters of the Third Kind, along with symbolic remains of four former US presidents, George Washington, Dwight D Eisenhower, John F Kennedy, and Ronald Reagan, on last year's deep-space Enterprise Flight.
Each capsule, crafted from titanium or aluminium and measuring roughly a quarter to half an inch, contained either DNA or cremated remains. These precious capsules orbited Earth twice aboard a 23-foot-tall SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, travelling at a speed of almost 28,000 kmph in low Earth orbit.
Charles Chafer, Celestis CEO and co-founder said Saturday, "Many people whose ashes and DNA are flying are people that always wanted to go to space in their lifetime but were never able to do that. It also helps families move from feelings of grief to joy."
Also aboard the Perseverance Flight were the ashes of Wesley Dreyer, an aerospace engineer involved in investigating the 1986 Space Shuttle Challenger disaster, as well as the DNA of a living three-year-old boy in Germany.
