Space Services Inc.

Space Services Inc. of America, founded in 1981 by Houston entrepreneur David Hannah Jr., operates primarily as a holding company for Celestis, a memorial spaceflight subsidiary that purchases secondary payload space on third-party rockets to carry cremated remains to orbit, deep space, or on suborbital trajectories. Celestis was founded in 1994 by former Space Services employees Charles Chafer and R. Chan Tysor, and its first flight, the Founders Flight of April 1997, carried the remains of Gene Roddenberry, Timothy Leary, and others aboard an Orbital Sciences Pegasus XL. The company also operates a star registry service. Space Services itself has a distinct early history: its Conestoga 1 rocket became the first privately funded rocket to reach space in 1982, though a later orbital attempt, the Conestoga 1620, failed 46 seconds after launch in October 1995 due to a guidance system failure, ending the in-house launch vehicle program.