To celebrate Ellen’s life, and her ambitions, we booked her on a flight to space, just before her 17th birthday, at 12 noon on 18th September 2020.
The Aura Voyager Flight is a unique space memorial service that launched her ashes and took them to the edge of space on a breathtaking journey.
The voyage is captured on video which will create a treasured memorial film to remember the event and to commemorate Ellen’s passion for space.
This is the video of Ellen’s Voyager flight up, up and away into space. Ellen joined other fellow passengers on board and they rose to over 36km above the surface of the Earth, where the atmosphere reduces to a thin blue line, the curvature of the Earth can be seen and the blackness of space is prominent above.
We celebrate the lives of the adventurers on board and pay tribute with a breath-taking final journey to the very edge of space.
Ellen loved going to Life Science Centre in Newcastle and was due to do her work experience at their new Space Zone in November 2019.
Thanks to Chief Executive Linda Conlon and her staff at the International Centre for Life, we had the honour to be invited to the launch of the Space Zone exhibit when it did open. We were further privileged to have a private meeting with Helen Sharman, CMG, OBE, HonFRSC, a chemist who became the first British astronaut (and in particular, the first British cosmonaut) as well as the first woman to visit the Mir space station in May 1991.
Helen showed great compassion for our loss. We told her about Ellen and her dreams of being a space scientist and Helen talked to us about her experience in space and how she wants to inspire younger generations to get involved in the field of space science.
Ellen would have been thrilled!