Orbital Mission Fails, Resulting in Loss of Human Remains and Space Pot

A spacecraft carrying the remains of more than 160 people crashed into the Pacific Ocean on Tuesday, June 24, causing its contents to be lost at sea. The mission intended to return the remains to the families that provided them following a brief stint in space, but now, they will never be seen again.

On Monday, June 23, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launched the Transporter-14 rideshare mission from California’s Vandenberg Space Force Base, carrying 70 payloads to low-Earth orbit. The largest was Nyx, a 1.6-ton (1.45-metric-ton) reentry capsule produced by The Exploration Company, a German aerospace startup. Dubbed “Mission Possible,” it was the company’s first attempt to carry customer payloads, taking roughly 660 pounds (300 kilograms) of cargo on a trip around the Earth. This included the ashes and DNA of more than 166 deceased people provided by Celestis, a memorial spaceflight company based in Houston, Texas. Though Nyx successfully reached orbit, its parachute system failed during reentry, according to Celestis.

“As a result of this unforeseen event, we believe that we will not be able to recover or return the flight capsules aboard,” the company said in a statement. “We share in the disappointment of our families, and we offer our sincerest gratitude for their trust.”

Though the mission achieved several key milestones—including a successful launch, orbit, and controlled reentry—Celestis acknowledged that its unsuccessful landing marks a significant personal loss for participating families. “In the coming days, our team will reach out to each family individually to offer support and discuss possible next steps,” the company said.

“Though we currently believe that we cannot return the flight capsules, we hope families will find some peace in knowing their loved ones were part of a historic journey, launched into space, orbited Earth, and are now resting in the vastness of the Pacific, akin to a traditional and honored sea scattering.”

This isn’t the first time a Celestis mission hasn’t gone as planned. In May 2023, a UP Aerospace rocket carrying the cremated remains of a late NASA astronaut exploded just seconds after liftoff over the New Mexico desert. The rocket was also carrying more than a dozen student experiment payloads for NASA.

In a statement posted to social media Tuesday, The Exploration Company deemed Mission Possible a “partial success,” explaining that the capsule managed to power its payloads nominally in orbit, stabilize itself after separating from Falcon 9, reenter Earth’s atmosphere, and reestablish communications after the brief blackout period.

“But it encountered an issue afterwards, based on our current best knowledge, and we lost communication a few minutes before splash down,” the company stated. “We are still investigating the root causes and will share more information soon. We apologize to all our clients who entrusted us with their payloads.”

In addition to the human remains and other payloads, Nyx carried cannabis provided by Martian Grow, an open-source citizen science project. The project, which ultimately aims to grow marijuana on Mars, secured a spot on Nyx to send seeds and plant matter to low-Earth orbit and study how microgravity affects their germination and resilience. “Cannabis is resilient, multipurpose, and biologically complex—making it ideal for studying how life adapts to extreme environments like space or Mars,” the Martian Grow website states.

Unfortunately, the cannabis was lost at sea along with the rest of Nyx’s payloads. Gizmodo reached out to Martian Grow for comment but did not receive a response by the time of publication.

Mission Possible was The Exploration Company’s second flight. The first, Mission Bikini, launched a smaller reentry capsule aboard the first Ariane 6 flight in July 2024. The rocket’s upper stage suffered an anomaly that prevented it from launching the capsule in its reentry trajectory, leaving it stuck in orbit with Bikini still attached.

This week’s mission was more ambitious, testing both reentry technologies and all the technologies that support Nyx, which is designed to eventually transport cargo to and from low-Earth orbit. Future iterations of this spacecraft could even be used to carry crews to space, according to SpaceNews.

This week’s crash underscores the realization that Nyx won’t be ready to fly astronauts anytime soon. Victor Maier, lead for Germany and central Europe business at The Exploration Company, told SpaceNews that the company has no plans to conduct additional test missions ahead of a Nyx demonstration flight to the International Space Station in 2028. That mission is pending support from the European Space Agency. The Exploration Company will, however, consider ground tests for some of the spacecraft’s subsystems, Maier said.

The company’s Tuesday statement suggests otherwise. “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,” it reads.