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LAST UPDATE | 14 Apr
POP STAR KATY Perry, Jeff Bezos’s fiancée Lauren Sanchez and TV presenter Gayle King are among the all-female group that have returned from touching the edge of space.
The flight blasted off from western Texas in the US.
It rose vertically before the crew capsule detached mid-flight, later falling back to the ground slowed by parachutes and a retro rocket.
The launch can be watched on the Blue Origin site or on X.
REPLAY: NS-31 crew heads to the launch pad! pic.twitter.com/sxhM0VbA2j
— Blue Origin (@blueorigin) April 14, 2025
They were lofted more than 100 kilometres above the Earth’s surface in a vessel from Blue Origin, the space company owned by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.
Sanchez picked the crew, who also include former Nasa rocket scientist Aisha Bowe, astronaut and activist Amanda Nguyen and movie producer Kerianne Flynn.
Today’s mission was the first all-woman space crew since Valentina Tereshkova’s historic solo flight in 1963.
It was also the 11th sub-orbital crewed operation by Blue Origin, which has offered the space tourism experiences for several years.
The company does not publicly communicate the price of trips made possible by its New Shepard rocket.
Lasting slightly over 10 minutes, the flight brought the passengers beyond the Karman line — the internationally recognized boundary of space.
There was a brief period when the crew could unbuckle from their seats and float in zero gravity.
Key stats from today’s New Shepard crewed NS-31 mission:
— Blue Origin (@blueorigin) April 14, 2025
The Crew Capsule reached an apogee of 346,802 ft AGL / 350,449 ft MSL (106 km AGL / 107 km MSL).
The booster reached an apogee of 346,481 ft AGL / 350,128 ft MSL (106 km AGL / 107 km MSL).
Official launch time was…
Perry hailed the “incredible and inspiring” women who joined her on the flight into space.
She wrote on Instagram ahead of the flight: “I’ve dreamt of going to space for 15 years and tomorrow that dream becomes a reality.
“I am so honoured to be alongside five other incredible and inspiring women as we become the first ever all-female flight space crew!”
Alongside the post, she shared a video of the capsule that she has been “training in for the last few days”, and revealed her call name is Feather.
In another video, the singer said she is “always looking for little confirmations from the heavens, from my guides, from my angels, from my higher self”.
“When I’m looking for it, it’s pretty loud,” she added.
She added that was shocked to discover during space training that the capsule she will travel in was 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 in the video.
Such high-profile guests are intended to keep public interest in Blue Origin’s work, as it battles multiple rival firms in the space tourism field.
Bezos’ top challenger in passenger flights is Virgin Galactic, which offers a similar sub-orbital experience.
But Blue Origin aims in future to bring space tourists into orbit, competing directly with Elon Musk’s SpaceX.
In January, Blue Origin’s much more powerful New Glenn rocket successfully completed its first unmanned orbital mission.
- © AFP 2025 and with additional reporting from Diarmuid Pepper
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