Space Burial: Is It Legal to Send Ashes to Space, and Who Regulates It?
Space burial explained: why sending ashes to space is legal, how the FAA reviews memorial payloads, the Navajo objection and what happens if a flight fails.
Sending a loved one’s ashes into space sounds like science fiction, but it has been a small commercial business for almost thirty years. Celestis, the best-known provider, lists more than twenty completed memorial flights on its launch schedule, the most recent on 1 October 2026. People search for it in large numbers, usually with two questions: is it legal, and what happens if something goes wrong? This explainer answers both.
What a space burial actually is
A space burial does not send a whole body, or even a whole urn. Providers fly a “symbolic portion” of cremated remains, or a DNA sample, sealed in a small capsule that rides as a secondary payload on someone else’s rocket. Celestis currently advertises four main services: Earth Rise, a trip to space and back with the capsule returned to the family, from $3,495; Earth Orbit, from $4,995; Luna, to lunar orbit or the surface, from $12,995; and Voyager, into deep space, also from $12,995.
The first private memorial flight launched on 21 April 1997, when a Pegasus rocket deployed over the Canary Islands carried capsules for 24 people, among them Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry and Timothy Leary. The first remains to reach the Moon belonged to the planetary geologist Eugene Shoemaker. According to NASA, its Lunar Prospector spacecraft, which carried part of his ashes, was deliberately crashed into a shadowed crater near the lunar south pole on 31 July 1999.
Is it legal? The short answer
Yes. None of the five UN space treaties mentions human remains, and nothing in them prohibits carrying ashes into space or leaving them there. Article II of the Outer Space Treaty bars national appropriation of the Moon, but a memorial capsule is not a claim to territory, any more than a flag or a lander is. Our piece on whether you can buy land on the Moon explains why that article matters for property, and why it does not touch objects left on the surface.
What the law does regulate is the launch. Remains travel as a payload, and the rocket carrying them must hold whatever authorisation its launching State requires. That is where the real legal controls sit.
Who regulates it in the United States
Memorial payloads have so far flown mostly on American rockets, so the FAA is the key regulator. The rocket operator needs a launch licence under 14 CFR Part 450, which our FAA Part 450 explainer covers in detail.
Payloads get a separate check. Under 51 USC 50904(c), where no other licence is required for a payload, the Secretary of Transportation “may prevent the launch or reentry if the Secretary decides the launch or reentry would jeopardize the public health and safety, safety of property, or national security or foreign policy interest of the United States.” The FAA carries this out through the payload review in 14 CFR 450.43, which also covers the international obligations of the United States and involves consultation with the Departments of Defense and State.
Where a memorial capsule has no radio transmitter or camera of its own, neither the FCC nor NOAA licenses it. That leaves the FAA’s payload review as the only federal look at what it is. The review asks whether the payload is dangerous or harms US interests. It does not ask whether it is respectful, ethical or welcome at its destination.
Outside the United States the structure is similar. Article VI of the Outer Space Treaty requires each State to authorise and supervise its national activities in space, so a memorial flight from the United Kingdom, for example, would need a licence under the Space Industry Act 2018.
The treaty duties that still apply
Once a capsule is in space, the general rules apply to it as to any other object. If it, or the spacecraft carrying it, causes damage, the launching State is liable under the Liability Convention; our Liability Convention explainer sets out how that works. The host spacecraft should be registered by the launching State.
For the Moon, Article IX of the Outer Space Treaty requires States to avoid “harmful contamination” of celestial bodies. Under the COSPAR planetary protection policy, the Moon is a Category II destination with lighter requirements, though landers at the poles face stricter documentation of the organic materials they carry. Our planetary protection explainer has the detail. I am not aware of any rule that treats cremated remains differently from other materials a lander carries.
The Navajo Nation objection
The one serious challenge to lunar memorials came in January 2024. Astrobotic’s Peregrine lander, flying under NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services programme, carried paying payloads from Celestis and Elysium Space alongside NASA science instruments. Celestis’s Tranquility Flight held 66 capsules of cremated remains and DNA.
In December 2023 Navajo Nation President Buu Nygren wrote to NASA asking for the launch to be delayed. “The moon holds a sacred place in Navajo cosmology,” he said, calling its use as a resting place for human remains “deeply disturbing and unacceptable to our people and many other tribal nations.” The Navajo Nation had also objected when Shoemaker’s ashes were sent to the Moon in the late 1990s, and Nygren said NASA had then promised to consult tribes before any further mission carrying remains to the Moon.
Days before the launch the White House convened a meeting, with representatives of NASA, the FAA, the Department of Transportation and the Department of Commerce due to attend. NASA’s Joel Kearns said the missions were commercial, “not U.S. government missions.” The Department of Transportation said the FAA’s role “is statutorily limited to ensuring space flights do not pose a safety or national security threat to the United States,” as reported by CNN. Celestis’s chief executive Charles Chafer said the company did “not find Mr. Nygren’s concerns to be compelling.”
Peregrine launched on 8 January 2024, suffered a propellant leak and never reached the Moon. It burned up over the South Pacific at about 4:04 p.m. EST on 18 January, according to NASA and Astrobotic.
The legal lesson is clear. Whatever NASA promised in 1999 bound NASA’s own missions at most. For a private payload on a commercial lander there was no consultation duty, no cultural heritage review and no veto. The only federal test was safety and national interest, and a memorial capsule passes it easily.
When a flight fails
The other risk is mechanical. On 23 June 2025 The Exploration Company’s Nyx capsule, on a mission called Mission Possible, launched on SpaceX’s Transporter-14 rideshare carrying remains and DNA from Celestis customers. Its parachutes did not deploy, and on 24 June the capsule was lost in the Pacific, Live Science reported, with remains for about 166 people on board. Celestis said the families’ loved ones were “resting in the vastness of the Pacific.”
On Earth, scattering ashes at sea is regulated. In the United States, the EPA’s general permit at 40 CFR 229.1 allows cremated remains to be buried at sea no closer than three nautical miles from land, with a report within 30 days. That rule was written for intentional burials from ships and aircraft, not for a returning spacecraft that misses its landing. Here the law has simply not caught up.
What protects families is contract. Celestis says customer payments are held in a trust-funded pre-paid account until the service is performed, and advertises a performance guarantee. Before paying any provider, I would ask what happens if the launch fails, whether a reflight is free, whether any remains are kept back on Earth, and which launch company and licence the flight depends on.
What I would watch
The first is the next lunar memorial. Celestis lists a Destiny Flight to the Moon with no date yet. If it lands, the cultural objection that went unresolved in 2024 will return, and this time it may not be settled by a propellant leak.
The second is policy. A short federal statement on consultation for culturally sensitive payloads, or a voluntary industry code, would cost little and avoid a repeat of the last-minute White House meeting.
The third is the Artemis Accords’ commitment to preserve outer space heritage. As lunar activity grows, memorial capsules will sit near historic sites, and someone will eventually ask whether they need protection, or protection from.
The fourth is consumer law. As more flights launch on new vehicles, failures will follow, and the first dispute over a lost capsule will test what “performance guarantee” really means.
Questions people actually ask
Is it legal to send human ashes to space?
Yes. No international treaty prohibits it. The remains fly as a payload, and the rocket must be licensed by its launching State, which in the United States means an FAA launch licence and a payload review for safety, national security and foreign policy.
How much does a space burial cost?
Celestis’s website lists Earth Rise, a flight to space and back, from $3,495; Earth Orbit from $4,995; Luna, to the Moon, from $12,995; and Voyager, to deep space, from $12,995. Only a symbolic portion of the ashes flies.
Who regulates space burials in the US?
The FAA. It licenses the launch under 14 CFR Part 450 and reviews payloads under 14 CFR 450.43. The Department of Transportation said in January 2024 that the FAA’s role is limited to safety and national security, so it does not judge cultural or ethical objections.
Are there human remains on the Moon?
Yes. Part of planetary geologist Eugene Shoemaker’s ashes travelled on NASA’s Lunar Prospector, which crashed into the Moon on 31 July 1999. A 2024 attempt to land more remains on Astrobotic’s Peregrine lander failed when the spacecraft never reached the Moon.
Why did the Navajo Nation object to remains on the Moon?
Navajo Nation President Buu Nygren said in late 2023 that the Moon “holds a sacred place in Navajo cosmology” and that using it as a resting place was unacceptable. The objection had no legal force, because the payloads were commercial and the FAA’s review covers only safety and national interests.
What happens if a space burial flight fails?
It depends on the contract. In June 2025 a Nyx capsule carrying Celestis remains for about 166 people was lost in the Pacific after its parachutes failed. Families should check refund and reflight terms, where payments are held and whether some ashes stay on Earth.
Rahul BaggaFounder and Advisor, Space Law Journal
Rahul Bagga is a Partner at Dentons Link Legal and a Founder and Advisor of Space Law Journal.
Space Law Journal is a joint initiative of Legal Desire Media and Odyogeek. Spotted something we got wrong, or want to respond? Write to space@legaldesire.com.
