Katy Perry will be part of an all-female crew on Jeff Bezos’ next Blue Origin flight to space, it emerged yesterday
The Firework singer will be joined by Bezos’ finance Lauren Sanchez, CBS presenter Gayle King, former Nasa rocket scientist Aisha Bowe, civil rights activist Amanda Nguyen, and film producer Kerianne Flynn.
They will fly to the Kármán line, the internationally recognised boundary of space, aboard the New Shepard rocket, a 59-foot tall (18m) autonomous suborbital spacecraft.
The six-strong, all-women crew will experience “several minutes” of minutes of weightlessness before returning to Earth via parachute-assisted landing in the West Texas desert.
Blue Origin, which is owned by Amazon founder Bezos, said this is the first all-women space flight to take place since the Soviet Union’s Valentina Tereshkova’s solo mission in 1963.
The NS-31 mission will be the 11th human spaceflight for the New Shepard rocket and the 31st in its history. So far, the programme has launched 52 people into space.
Its latest space flight took place on 21st February.
Perry’s trip will take place in Spring this year, though no date has yet been given.
In a statement, the singer said she was “honoured to be a part of Blue Origin’s first all-female crew and hopes her journey encourages her daughter and others to reach for the stars, literally and figuratively.”
The mission is being led by Lauren Sánchez, herself a licensed helicopter pilot.
According to Blue Origin, Sánchez is “honored to lead a team of explorers on a mission that will challenge their perspectives of Earth, empower them to share their own stories, and create lasting impact that will inspire generations to come.”
Bezos himself flew on the company’s first manned mission in 2021, while previous celebrities who have blasted into space through Blue Origin include Star Trek actor William Shatner and Richard Branson.
The news follows this weekend’s success of Texas-based Firefly Aerospace, which became only the second private firm in history to land a spacecraft on the moon.
Its Blue Ghost lander touched down at 8.34am UK-time on Sunday on a volcanic plain called Mare Crisium, or The Sea of Crises, near a solitary lunar mountain called Mons Latreille.
The robotic craft autonomously navigated the uneven, pockmarked surface to land within just 100 metres of its target, slowing from thousands of miles an hour to just two.
As it touched down, cheers erupted at mission control in Austin, Texas, after the flight controller announced, “We’re on the moon!”.
The mission, called ‘Ghost Riders in the Sky’, formed part of a $2.6bn Nasa partnership that aims to support its Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative to return astronauts to the moon.
It launched on 15 January aboard a SpaceX Flacon 9 rocket, obtaining spectacular video footage and pictures of Earth and the moon on its 45-day, 2.8million-mile journey.
The six astronauts on the Blue Origin mission are:
Aisha Bowe
Aisha is a former NASA rocket scientist, entrepreneur, and global STEM advocate. She is the CEO of STEMBoard, an engineering firm recognized twice on the Inc. 5000 list of America’s fastest-growing private companies, and the founder of LINGO, an edtech company on a mission to equip one million students with essential tech skills. Of Bahamian heritage, Aisha hopes her journey from community college to space will inspire young people in the Bahamas and around the world to pursue their dreams.
Amanda Nguyen
Amanda is a bioastronautics research scientist. She graduated from Harvard, and conducted research at Harvard Center for Astrophysics, MIT, NASA, and International Institute for Astronautical Sciences. Amanda worked on the last NASA shuttle mission, STS-135, and the Kepler exoplanet mission. For her advocacy for sexual violence survivors, she was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize and awarded TIME’s Woman of the Year. As the first Vietnamese and Southeast Asian woman astronaut, Amanda’s flight is a symbol of reconciliation between the United States and Vietnam, and will highlight science as a tool for peace.
Gayle King
Gayle is an award-winning journalist, co-host of CBS Mornings, editor-at-large of Oprah Daily, and the host of Gayle King in the House on SiriusXM radio. In a career spanning decades, King has been recognized as a gifted, compassionate interviewer able to break through the noise and create meaningful conversations. As someone who is staying open to new adventures, even ones that scare her, Gayle is honored to be part of Blue Origin’s first all-female flight team and is looking forward to stepping out of her comfort zone.
Katy Perry
Katy is the biggest-selling female artist in Capitol Records’ history and one of the best-selling music artists of all time with over 115 billion streams. Aside from being a global pop superstar, Katy is an active advocate of many philanthropic causes, including as a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador where she uses her powerful voice to ensure every child’s right to health, education, equality, and protection, and her own Firework Foundation, which empowers children from underserved communities by igniting their inner light through the arts. Katy is honored to be a part of Blue Origin’s first all-female crew and hopes her journey encourages her daughter and others to reach for the stars, literally and figuratively.
Kerianne Flynn
After a successful career in fashion and human resources, Kerianne Flynn has spent the last decade channeling her energy into community-building through board service and nonprofit work with The Allen-Stevenson School, The High Line, and Hudson River Park. Passionate about the transformative power of storytelling, Kerianne has produced thought-provoking films such as This Changes Everything (2018), which explores the history of women in Hollywood, and LILLY (2024), a powerful tribute to fair-pay advocate Lilly Ledbetter. Kerianne has always been drawn to exploration, adventure, and space, and hopes her Blue Origin space flight serves as an inspiration for her son, Dex, and the next generation of dreamers to reach for the stars.
Lauren Sánchez
Lauren is an Emmy Award-winning journalist, New York Times bestselling author, pilot, Vice Chair of the Bezos Earth Fund, and mother of three. In 2016, Sánchez, a licensed helicopter pilot, founded Black Ops Aviation, the first female-owned and operated aerial film and production company. Sánchez released her New York Times bestselling debut children’s book, The Fly Who Flew to Space, in 2024. Her work in aviation earned her the Elling Halvorson Vertical Flight Hall of Fame Award in 2024 for her expertise as a helicopter pilot and aviation businesswoman. Sánchez’s goal is to inspire the next generation of explorers.
