Elysium Space was founded by Thomas Civeit in 2013.2
In 2015, a launch aboard a USAF Super Strypi rocket failed to reach orbit. The remains will be reflown in the second launch. The remains were to have orbited for 2 years before reentering and going out in a blaze.3
It will offer a service to launch the ashes of dead people into space aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket that will launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, United States. This rocket rideshare will launch ashes into a Sun-synchronous orbit about the Earth. The Earth orbiting ashes will eventually have its orbit decay and return to Earth as a shooting star.45
Elysium Space launches the cremated remains aboard their Elysium Star space mausoleum satellites, a series of 1U cubesats. The Earth-orbiting satellites are designed to remain in space for 2 years before orbital decay brings them back to Earth as a shooting star, burning up in a blazing reentry.6
Elysium Space plans to use Astrobotic's Peregrine lunar lander for their lunar mausoleums.7
Elysium Space is in the early stages of planning for deep-space burials.8
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Michal Addady (24 August 2015). "This company is offering the first ever lunar burial". Fortune. http://fortune.com/2015/08/24/elysium-space-lunar-burial/ ↩
Debra Werner (16 May 2017). "A cubesat packed with cremated remains slotted for SpaceX rideshare mission". SpaceNews. http://spacenews.com/a-cubesat-packed-with-cremated-remains-slotted-for-spacex-rideshare-mission/ ↩
Darrell Etherington (16 May 2017). "Elysium Space to launch the first ever 'memorial spacecraft' via SpaceX". Tech Crunch. https://techcrunch.com/2017/05/16/elysium-space-to-launch-the-first-ever-memorial-spacecraft-via-spacex/ ↩
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. https://web.archive.org/web/20170811022119/https://www.geek.com/tech-science-3/spacex-will-launch-human-remains-later-this-year-1700184/ ↩
Abigail Beall (16 May 2017). "You can now send your loved one's ashes into orbit on a SpaceX rocket". Wired UK. https://www.wired.co.uk/article/spacex-elysium-rocket ↩
Tim Reyes (23 August 2015). "Astrobotic Mission One Manifest". Tech Crunch. https://www.astrobotic.com/manifest ↩
Roberts, Jeffrey; Hadaller, Adam (23 August 2019). "Behind the US's largest Rideshare Launch: Spaceflight's SSO-A". 33rd Annual AIAA/USU Conference on Small Satellites. Logan, Utah, USA: Spaceflight, Inc. https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/smallsat/2019/all2019/144/ ↩
Jeff Foust (23 August 2019). "Spaceflight herded 64 cubesats onto a single Falcon 9 and has the scratch marks to prove it". SpaceNews. https://spacenews.com/spaceflight-herded-64-cubesats-onto-a-single-falcon-9-it-has-the-scratch-marks-to-prove-it/ ↩