Blue Origin’s all-female glam crew is set to launch tomorrow. Here’s what you need to know

The historic all-female space flight is set to launch on Monday morning (Apr 14) with pop-star Katy Perry and Gayle King on board Blue Origin’s New Shepard 31. The space company’s founder and ex-Amazon boss, Jeff Bezos, is also sending his fiancée, Lauren Sánchez, to space along with three other crew members. 

The launch is scheduled at 9:30 am from the company base, 30 miles north of Van Horn, Texas. The spacecraft will fly to reach the Kármán line, the internationally recognised boundary of space at an altitude of 62 miles. The women will be back after 11 minutes of flight, marking the first all-female space journey since the solo flight of Soviet cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova in 1963.

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Who will be on board?

The crew of six women on board Blue Origin’s tourism flight includes Bezos’s fiancée, Lauren Sánchez, a journalist and philanthropist. The first Vietnamese woman to fly to space and a civil rights activist, Amanda Nguyen, will also be part of the crew. The CBS Mornings co-host Gayle King, pop star Katy Perry, and film producer Kerianne Flynn will also be aboard the space flight. Entrepreneur and former NASA rocket scientist Aisha Bowe will also join the women.

New Shepard 31 flight

About two minutes after liftoff, the New Shepard booster is set to separate from the crew capsule. It will then return in a controlled touchdown at the Blue Origin pad, which is about 2 miles north of the launch site.

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The women will return after 10 to 11 minutes of flight in a parachute landing in the Texas desert. To prepare for the mission, all six crewmates arrived at the base on Saturday (Apr 12). The women also took part in a photo-op in form-fitting Blue Origin’s jumpsuits at the rocket bridge site.

Special space suits

Blue Origin designed a special crest on women’s space suits featuring their names, works, and ambitions.

Perry’s suit features an image of a firework next to her name, referencing her hit 2001 song. Sanchez’s includes a fly near her name as a nod to her children’s book “The Fly Who Flew to Space.”

King has a microphone icon to symbolise her work on CBS News, while Nguyen has a symbol of scales of justice for her civil rights advocacy. Flynn has a film reel for her career, and Bowe has a target star as a reference to her passion for STEM.

Apart from enjoying the view, the women have also partnered with various universities and science groups to carry out experiments during their journey to space.

(With inputs from agencies)