I understand a very small part of space burials are going into deep space.
And a good part of them go into suborbital flights.
But are there any space burials sent to graveyard orbits?
Are any space burials being put into geocentric orbit?
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6I ask myself: is this a pun or a seroius question? – CallMeTom Sep 02 '20 at 14:50
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1Sounds like a pun yes. But many ashes were launched in suborbital space. So I would like to know if any ashes were sent to stay in orbit a long time – Joe Jobs Sep 02 '20 at 15:18
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- To my knowledge, no. 2. Please don't.
– Tristan Sep 02 '20 at 16:15 -
Why not? To me it souds strange to send ashes to stay in space for a few minutes. If they are sent to space they should stay there for a long time – Joe Jobs Sep 02 '20 at 16:19
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1This is a good question. Maybe could be made more general: are any space burials being put into geocentric orbit (rather than heliocentric orbit or just taking a suborbital ride)? Graveyard orbits typically exist only relative to a particular operational orbit. The GEO graveyard is different from the GPS graveyard, etc... – Anton Hengst Sep 02 '20 at 17:08
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4It would be a genuine dis-service to mankind send ashes to space, increasing the space debris issue and increasing risk of satellite degradation. Most people who might be suitable for such an honour (if you want to call it like that) might not want it for that very reason as they care(d) about Earth and mankind. – planetmaker Sep 02 '20 at 18:14
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None that I'm aware of. A few deep space, as you mention. Otherwise all that have gone to orbit have been LEO, mostly on Pegasus, with a relatively short in-space lifetime. – Carlos N Sep 02 '20 at 18:43
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1Celestis used a lot of sounding rockets so that is non orbital space – Joe Jobs Sep 02 '20 at 20:54
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@planetmaker - space burials launches can fill a single big satellite in the GEO graveyard. No debris. – Joe Jobs Sep 02 '20 at 21:15
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@JoeJobs a single big satellite in the GEO graveyard IS debris... – CallMeTom Sep 03 '20 at 05:01
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To my knowledge, ashes going to space fall under one of two categories.
- They are attached to the upper stage as some kind of ballast.
- They are connected to satellites that serve some other purpose.
So there is no specifically free-floating ashes in space. The vast majority of them return when the upper stage burns up. Most upper stages are either immediately disposed of, or at least placed in an orbit where they will be gone within 20 or so years.
PearsonArtPhoto
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3@JoeJobs: Actually the upper stages itself ar enot sent into "the" graveyard orbit but stay in a degrading GEO-Transfer-Orbit for a longer time. So basically the only way to end up in "THE" graveyard orbit is to have ones aches on a GEO Satellite that is sent to the graveyard orbit after its mission OR to be on a satellite sent to another orbit after operational time and call this a graveyard orbit... – CallMeTom Sep 03 '20 at 05:00
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1I think there are some upper stages that end up in the GEO orbit, but those tend to be for military missions. I really doubt any of those contain ashes... – PearsonArtPhoto Sep 08 '20 at 20:09
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Clyde Tombaugh is in the Kuiper belt but Eugene Shoemaker now orbits the Earth.
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