Katy Perry to be a part of Blue Origin's star-studded all-female flight to space
Katy Perry will join five other women in making the first all-female space flight crew since Valentina Tereshkova’s solo spaceflight in 1963, Blue Origin says.
Blue Origin launches first human crew since 2022
Blue Origin's New Shepard rocket launched six people to the edge of space from Texas on Sunday, including Ed Dwight, the first American Black astronaut candidate. Re-watch the launch from Van Horn.
VAN HORN, Texas – Iconic American singer and songwriter Katy Perry is among a star-studded crew that is set to launch into space this spring aboard Blue Origin's New Shephard rocket.
Perry will join five other women in making the first all-female space flight crew since Valentina Tereshkova’s solo spaceflight in 1963, Blue Origin says.
This mission will be the 11th human flight for the New Shepard program and the 31st in its history when it launches from Blue Origin's launch site in West Texas.
Blue Origin says so far, their program has flown 52 people above the Kármán line, the internationally recognized boundary of space, since operations began in 2021. The company says it's part of their larger goal to one day have humans work and live in space.
Perry is one of the biggest-selling female artists in Capitol Records history, as well as one of the best-selling music artists of all time, with over 115 billion streams. She burst onto the pop scene in 2008 with her hit song "I Kissed a Girl," which has led to over a decade of Perry dominating the music industry.
The crew of Blue Origin's NS-19 mission at apogee on Dec. 11, 2021. Pictured from left to right: Evan Dick, Michael Strahan, Laura Shepard Churchley, Dylan Taylor, Lane Bess, and Cameron Bess. (Image: Blue Origin)
Perry will be joined by Gayle King, Laren Sanchez, Amanda Nguyen, Aisha Bowe and Kerianne Flynn.
King is an award-winning journalist and co-host of CBS Mornings. Sánchez is an Emmy award-winning journalist, New York Times best-selling author, pilot, and Vice-chair of the Bezos Earth Fund.
Nguyen is a bioastronautics research scientist who graduated from Harvard and has worked on the last NASA shuttle mission, STS-135, and the Kepler exoplanet mission. She will be the first Vietnamese and Southeast Asian woman astronaut.
A Blue Origin New Shepard rocket launches from Launch Site One in West Texas north of Van Horn on March 31, 2022. - The NS-20 mission carries Blue Origins New Shepard Chief Architect Gary Lai, Marty Allen, Sharon Hagle, Marc Hagle, Jim Kitchen, and Dr. George Nield into space. (PATRICK T. FALLON/AFP via Getty Images)
Bowe is a former NASA rocket scientist and CEO of STEMBoard, an engineering firm recognized as one of America's fastest-growing private companies.
Flynn has spent the last decade in nonprofit work and says she is passionate about transformative storytelling. She has produced films such as "This Changes Everything," which explores the history of women in Hollywood.
No exact launch date has been given yet.