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Stockport man launches his French bulldog's ashes into space

Local News by Matthew Hancock-Bruce 1 minutes ago  
Jacob Battersby was joined by friends to launch his dog's ashes into space (Credit: SWNS)
Jacob Battersby was joined by friends to launch his dog's ashes into space (Credit: SWNS)
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A Stockport man has launched his dog's ashes 119,000ft in the air and and scattered them in space.

Oscar, a six-year-old French bulldog who died suddenly from a brain tumour earlier this year, has been given one final adventure after his ashes were sent to the edge of the atmosphere in a weather balloon.

His favourite Toy Story alien plush and a pet GPS tracker travelled to the edge of Earth's atmosphere in a weather balloon tribute.

His owner, Jacob Battersby, 26 and from Stockport, and friend Callum King launched the balloon from Rugby in Warwickshire.

After climbing to the edge of Earth's atmosphere, where temperatures dropped to -72C, the balloon burst, scattering Oscar's ashes before the package descended by parachute and landed 55 miles away near Nottinghamshire.

Content creator Jacob said: "It's really special. They say after about six months, his ashes will eventually return to Earth as rain.

"I really like the idea that a little part of him is still up there.

"People always look up at the sky when they're thinking about loved ones they've lost. And mine is actually up there.

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"And when I go away with Toby, I like to think that Oscar can see us."

Jacob said he was keen to take his other French bulldog, Toby, on the adventures he didn't get to do with Oscar.

He said: "Our other French bulldog, Toby, was diagnosed with cancer just a couple of weeks ago.

"I've probably got a year with her so I'd definitely like to plan things. We're going away in September hopefully, and she loved the Dolomites.

"We'd love to take her paragliding, it's probably the closest she'll ever get to space, and to Oscar.

Oscar, a six-year-old French bulldog, died suddenly from a brain tumour earlier this year (Credit: SWNS)

Jacob and Callum first met at Insomnia Gaming Festival in 2016 before later founding Zoomi, a company developing GPS and health trackers for pets.

Before Oscar became ill, Jacob had hoped to travel the world with him, but they never got to go.

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Wanting to create a lasting tribute, the pair decided to combine Oscar's memorial with a weather balloon launch - something Callum had unsuccessfully attempted while at school years earlier.

On May 7, 2026, they launched a helium-filled weather balloon from Rugby carrying cameras recording the entire flight and a Zoomi GPS tracker housed inside a custom-built payload box.

The balloon lifted off at 2.24pm and eventually climbed to around 119,000 ft before bursting near the edge of Earth's atmosphere. The payload touched down shortly after 7pm - 55 miles from the launch site.

Callum told Sell Us Your Story: "I'd done a weather balloon launch years ago at school and we never recovered the payload.

"It always stayed with me because we'd got all this incredible footage but never knew where it had ended up.

"So being able to come back years later, build our own payload, send something to the edge of space and recover it ourselves was incredibly satisfying."

The flight also doubled as a real-world test of the tracker developed by their company, Zoomi, which launched last month, proving it could successfully locate the package after its journey.

Callum said: "We expected it to be in the air for around two hours, so when that time passed we genuinely thought it had gone forever.

"Finding it proved not only that Oscar had completed his final journey, but that our tracker had done exactly what it was designed to do."

He continued: "Oscar couldn't see the world, so we decided to show the world Oscar.

"Jacob lost Oscar at the start of the year and it came completely out of the blue. He had a brain tumour and it happened so quickly.

"When we started planning the launch, taking his ashes up there wasn't really a question. It was just how we were going to do it.

"It felt like one last adventure for him."

     

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