The ashes of five New Zealanders —and 42 others— are about to be blasted off into space.

New Zealand start-up Stardust Me has sold spaces on one of Elon Musk's Space-X rockets for families who want to send their loved one's ashes into the stratosphere.

The rocket was due to take-off this morning, but it's now been delayed until tonight.

Co-founder Stu Potter says that the ashes are being put into space-engineered tokens that orbit Earth for the life-cycle of a satellite.

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