Katy Perry Joins Historic All-Female Space Flight

Pop star Katy Perry is set to make history as part of an all-woman group launching into space on Monday, aboard a rocket powered by billionaire Jeff Bezos’s space company, Blue Origin.

The “Firework” and “California Gurls” singer will join five other women, including Bezos’s fiancée Lauren Sanchez, on a sub-orbital flight that will take them more than 100 kilometers above the Earth’s surface.

The crew will launch from western Texas at around 8:30 am local time and will experience a few minutes of weightlessness before returning to Earth.

The flight, which will last around 10 minutes, will reach the Karman line, the internationally recognized boundary of space.

Perry recently shared that she’s participating in the mission “for my daughter Daisy,” whom she shares with actor Orlando Bloom. “I’m just so excited to see the inspiration through her eyes and the light in her eyes when she sees that rocket go, and she goes back to school the next day and says ‘Mom went to space’,” Perry told Elle magazine.

In a separate video posted to Instagram, Perry revealed that she was surprised to discover that the capsule she’s traveling in is named the “Tortoise” and decorated with a “feather” design the two nicknames her parents have for her. “There are no coincidences and I’m just so grateful for these confirmations and so grateful that I feel like something bigger than me is steering the ship,” Perry said.

The all-woman crew includes TV presenter Gayle King, film producer Kerianne Flynn, former NASA scientist Aisha Bowe, and Amanda Nguyen, founder of a campaign group against sexual violence.

Showing clockwise from L, US entrepreneur Lauren Sanchez, former NASA scientist Amanda Nguyen, singer Katy Perry, TV presenter Gale King, former NASA scientist Aisha Bowe and film producer Kerianne Flynn posing in their space suits ahead of the all-woman sub-orbital mission aboard the New Shepard rocket.

This mission marks the first all-woman space crew since Valentina Tereshkova’s historic solo flight in 1963 and the 11th sub-orbital crewed operation by Blue Origin.

Blue Origin, which has offered space tourism experiences for several years, is competing with other companies like Virgin Galactic and SpaceX in the space tourism field. The company recently successfully completed its first unmanned orbital mission with its New Glenn rocket.

The price of the trip is not publicly disclosed, but the experience is expected to be a unique and thrilling one for the crew members.