New Shepard all female crew
New Shepard NS-31 crew: Aisha Bowe, Amanda Nguyen, Gayle King, Katy Perry, Kerianne Flynn, and Lauren Sánchez. Image credit: Blue Origin via X

Blue Origin officially announced that Pop singer Katy Perry is set to join Blue Origin’s first all-female spaceflight crew, scheduled for spring 2025. The crew includes journalist Lauren Sánchez, CBS anchor Gayle King, former NASA scientist Aisha Bowe, activist Amanda Nguyen, and film producer Kerianne Flynn.

This mission will take them to the edge of space aboard the New Shepard rocket, offering a brief experience of weightlessness before returning to Earth.

The New Shepard is a suborbital rocket designed for space tourism, featuring a fully automated capsule with large windows for panoramic Earth views. The flight will last about 11 minutes, reaching an altitude of over 100 km (Kármán line) before making a parachute-assisted landing.

Lauren Sánchez, who is engaged to Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, expressed enthusiasm about leading this historic flight. The mission aims to inspire more women to explore careers in aerospace and science while promoting commercial space travel as an accessible experience.

While the exact launch date has not been announced, the flight is anticipated to occur in the coming months. This initiative reflects Blue Origin’s commitment to making space travel more inclusive and advancing the future of space tourism.

Nihal Sayyad is a physics undergraduate and amateur astronomer with a strong passion for space science and science communication. He writes about space exploration, celestial events, and scientific breakthroughs, aiming to make complex topics accessible to all. When he’s not writing, Nihal enjoys painting and sketching.

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