Space News from SpaceDaily.com
Katy Perry roars into space on all-woman flight
Washington, April 14 (AFP) Apr 14, 2025
Pop star Katy Perry completed a brief foray into space Monday, roaring to the edge of the cosmos with an all-women crew on one of billionaire Jeff Bezos's rockets.

The "Firework" and "California Gurls" singer was lofted more than 60 miles (100 kilometers) above the Earth's surface in a vessel from Blue Origin, the space company owned by the Amazon founder.

Five other women including Bezos's fiancee Lauren Sanchez were on the flight, which took off from western Texas shortly after 8:30 am (1330 GMT) before safely landing again some 10 minutes later.

The flight brought the passengers beyond the Karman line -- the internationally recognized boundary of space.

Their fully automated craft rose vertically before the crew capsule detached mid-flight, later falling back to the ground slowed by parachutes and a retro rocket.

The jubilant women then emerged, with Perry kissing the ground after exiting the capsule.

Monday's mission is the first all-woman space crew since Valentina Tereshkova's historic solo flight in 1963.

It is also the 11th sub-orbital crewed operation by Blue Origin, which has offered space tourism experiences for several years.

The company does not publicly communicate the price of trips made possible by its New Shepard rocket.

They were expected to have a brief period when the women could unbuckle from their seats and float in zero gravity.


- 'Inspiration' -


Perry recently told Elle magazine that she was taking part "for my daughter Daisy," whom she shares with actor Orlando Bloom, "to inspire her to never have limits on her dreams."

"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 added.

She said in a separate video posted to Instagram that she was shocked to discover during space training that the capsule she would 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.

Perry, launched onto the international stage with her 2008 hit "I Kissed a Girl," was also travelling alongside TV presenter Gayle King, film producer Kerianne Flynn, former NASA scientist Aisha Bowe and Amanda Nguyen, founder of a campaign group against sexual violence.

They follow 52 previous Blue Origin passengers, including longtime "Star Trek" leading man William Shatner.

King's close friend -- talk show legend Oprah Winfrey -- was among those watching the launch in Texas.

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 the 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.

bur-st/wd

Amazon.com

Virgin Galactic


ADVERTISEMENT




Space News from SpaceDaily.com
Trump shifts priority to Moon mission, not Mars
The Quantum Age will be Powered by Fusion
BlackSky accelerates Gen-3 satellite into full commercial service in three weeks

24/7 Energy News Coverage
Conventional photon entanglement reveals thousands of hidden topologies in high dimensions
Philosopher argues AI consciousness may remain unknowable
Introducing the SEVEN Class A Thermopile Pyranometer

Military Space News, Nuclear Weapons, Missile Defense
SDA expands Tracking Layer satellite awards and related missile defense contracts
Rheinmetall ICEYE Space Solutions to provide SAR reconnaissance data to German military
RTX radar selected to support autonomous X 62A fighter testing

24/7 News Coverage
Bible 1.0: How Ancient Canon Became Our First Large Language Models
Can scientists detect life without knowing what it looks like
Deep ocean quakes linked to Antarctic phytoplankton surges


All rights reserved. Copyright Agence France-Presse. Sections of the information displayed on this page (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence, you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the content of this section without the prior written consent of Agence France-Presse.