*“Star Trek” icon Nichelle Nichols, who starred as Lieutenant Uhura, passed away in July and now her remains will be sent to deep space via the upcoming Celestis Enterprise Flight.
As reported by PEOPLE, Celestial Memorial Spaceflights announced Thursday that Nichols’ remains will be part of the payload on a Vulcan rocket launching later this year. Per TMZ, the remains of “Star Trek” creator Gene Roddenberry, James Doohan (“Scotty”) and Majel Barrett Roddenberry (“Nurse Chapel”) — will also be on the rocket’s “graveyard orbit” around the sun.
“I’m sure she would have much preferred to go on the shuttle, but this was a pretty close second,” said Nichelle’s son, Kyle Johnson.
Per the company’s website, Celestial Memorial Spaceflights orbit planet Earth, the moon “and soon into deep space.”
READ MORE: Nichelle Nichols: Trailblazing ‘Star Trek’ Actress Dies at 89
“We are absolutely honored to announce that the late Nichelle Nichols will be joining the ‘crew’ aboard the upcoming Celestis Enterprise Flight, headed to deep space later this year alongside several of her fellow Star Trek icons,” the company shared on Instagram. “Nichols joins Gene Roddenberry, Majel Barrett Roddenberry, and James ‘Scotty’ Doohan on a groundbreaking journey that is the first of its kind.”
We reported previously, via CNN, that when “Star Trek” began in 1966, Nichols was a television rarity: a Black woman in a notable role on a prime-time television series. There had been African-American women on TV before, but they often played domestic workers and had small roles; Nichols’ Uhura was an integral part of the multicultural “Star Trek” crew.
The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. called it “the first non-stereotypical role portrayed by a Black woman in television history.”
Nichols is widely known for participating in one of the first interracial kisses on US television when her character kissed James T. Kirk, portrayed by White Canadian actor William Shatner. In an interview with CNN in 2014, Nichols said the kiss scene “changed television forever, and it also changed the way people looked at one another.”
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