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Katy Perry, Gayle King, Lauren Sanchez and 3 other women prep for space

Theresa Braine, New York Daily News on

Published in News & Features

Six female celebs — including pop songstress Katy Perry, journalist Gayle King and Jeff Bezos’s fiancée, author Lauren Sánchez — are slated to blast off Monday morning in a Blue Origin rocket headed for the edge of space.

Flying along with the three household names will be former NASA rocket scientist Aisha Bowe, activist and bioastronautics research scientist Amanda Nguyen, and film producer Kerianne Flynn. They comprise the first all-female flight crew since 1963, when Soviet cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova flew a solo mission.

Those wanting to watch the launch have several options for tuning in, as Space.com notes. There’s Blue Origin’s website, which will start livestreaming 90 minutes before takeoff, with simulcasts on YouTube and elsewhere on social media. CBS will also broadcast the launch, and it will be streamed on CBS News 24/7 as well as Paramount+, the network said. Blue Origin is the private spaceflight company Bezos owns.

From meditation to simulations, the crew has been preparing since their adventure was announced in late February. Each feels varying degrees of nervousness, they admitted to Elle.

Perry is following a space aspiration she has carried for nearly two decades, she told Elle. King admitted she first turned down the invite but overcame her trepidation to embrace being “terrified and excited at the same time,” she told the magazine. Bowe said she feels she’s “been training for and waiting for this moment my entire life,” and Nguyen said her first thought was, “About time.” Flynn said it evoked a celestial connection to her grandfather and their skygazing days during her childhood.

 

The launch is scheduled for 8:30 Central Time, which is 9:30 a.m. Eastern, from Launch Site One in western Texas, according to the Blue Origin site. It is the 11th flight in the set of missions dubbed New Shepard, tagged NS-31.

“New Shepard astronauts ascend toward space at more than three times the speed of sound,” Blue Origin details. “They pass the Kármán line, the internationally recognized boundary of space 62 miles (100 km) above Earth, before unbuckling to float weightless and gaze at our planet. The crew returns gently under parachutes.”

It’s the first all-female crew to fly on the rocket, which has seen numerous luminaries, including “Star Trek” actor William Shatner, soar beyond the skies for a brief taste of zero-gravity as they gaze at the “pale blue dot” floating in the void.

The six women have been in Van Horn, Texas, for several days undergoing final training sessions, according to ABC News.


©2025 New York Daily News. Visit at nydailynews.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

 

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