Lauren Sanchez’s all-female space flight is about to blast off
Good morning and welcome to our blog covering Blue Origin’s 11th human flight as Jeff Bezos blasts his bride-to-be, Lauren Sánchez, and five other women into space in what is being billed as the first all-female crew to attempt such a mission.
A crew of six women – Amanda Nguyen, a civil rights activist who will become the first Vietnamese woman to fly to space; the CBS Mornings co-host Gayle King; the pop star Katy Perry; film producer Kerianne Flynn; entrepreneur and former Nasa rocket scientist Aisha Bowe; and Sánchez, a journalist and philanthropist – will blast off on Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket from the company’s launch site, 30 miles north of Van Horn, Texas, on an 11-minute, suborbital flight to the edge of space and back.
Though billed as the first all-female crew to reach the Kármán line, the internationally recognised boundary of space at an altitude of 62 miles, it is not technically so: the cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova flew a solo mission to space in 1963.
But Tereshkova didn’t blast off with the accoutrements afforded the new ladies of space. “We’re a crew!” they reportedly shouted in unison at a photoshoot for Elle magazine, each rocking “an all-black power look”. The magazine noted that this will be the first time anyone has been to space with their hair and makeup done.
“Who would not get glam before the flight?” Sánchez remarked. Perry added: “Space is going to finally be glam. Let me tell you something. If I could take glam up with me, I would do that. We are going to put the ‘ass’ in astronaut.”
For our full preview of the flight, see here:
Key events
Edward Helmore
Trips like these raise questions: are they anything more than joy rides – and do they need to be?
Gayle King said she “had a lot of trepidation – I still do – but I also know it’s very interesting to be terrified and excited at the same time. I haven’t felt like this since childbirth. Because I knew childbirth was going to hurt. But it’s also stepping out of your comfort zone.”
The actor William Shatner, AKA Capt James T Kirk of the Starship Enterprise, took one of the first flights on Bezos’s rocket at the age of 90 in 2022. He said he was surprised by his own reaction to the experience – and moved to tears.
“When I looked in the opposite direction, into space, there was no mystery, no majestic awe to behold … All I saw was death. I saw a cold, dark, black emptiness. It was unlike any blackness you can see or feel on Earth. It was deep, enveloping, all-encompassing. It was among the strongest feelings of grief I have ever encountered,” he added.
For Bezos, however, the all-female trip may be more than a curated joyride in a rocket that flies itself. The Amazon co-founder is locked in a competitive commercial space launch industry battle with Elon Musk. Rockets from Musk’s Space X Falcon 9 family have launched 469 times.
By contrast, Blue Origin has completed a mere 31 successful launches of its New Shepard vehicle, including 11 crewed suborbital flights.
What you need to know about the Blue Origin space flight
-
Mission NS-31 is historic, marking the first time since 1963 that an all-female crew has launched into space, highlighting a significant moment in space exploration and gender representation.
-
Though billed as the first all-female crew to reach the Kármán line, the internationally recognised boundary of space at an altitude of 62 miles, it is not technically so: the cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova flew a solo mission to space in 1963.
-
The mission features several well-known public figures, including: Katy Perry, international pop star; Gayle King, a respected broadcasting personality known for her work on television and in journalism; Lauren Sánchez, a journalist and media personality, who is also the fiancee of Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon and owner of Blue Origin.
-
Developed by Blue Origin, the spacecraft is built to be fully reusable and is specifically engineered for human spaceflight.
-
The rocket operates without pilots. Instead, passengers ride in a compact, round crew capsule positioned at the top of the vehicle.
-
The launch window for Mission NS-31 opens at 8:30am local time in Texas (2.30pm BST), with liftoff taking place from Blue Origin’s launch site in the state.
Katy Perry is undertaking final preparations before she joins an all-female crew on a BlueOrigin space flight.
The US pop star will join five other women for the first female-only mission in more than six decades, PA Media reported.
The crew – made up of Perry, former Nasa rocket scientist Aisha Bowe, civil rights activist Amanda Nguyen, film producer Kerianne Flynn, and journalist Lauren Sanchez – managed to get in some last-minute astronaut lessons in Texas on Sunday, according to photos shared online by BlueOrigin.
Perry also shared some snaps of her own, vowing to put “the ‘ass’ in astronaut” in the coming hours in a post with Sanchez. The two can be seen clad in blue jumpsuits, especially made by Sanchez for the mission.
The US-based journalist told the New York Times earlier in the week that her jumpsuit design manages to “bring a little spice to space” while also being shaped to the female form.
Earlier on Sunday, Perry said she had been given “confirmation” that her journey aboard the rocket on 14 April was written in the stars.
In a video posted to Instagram, she said she is “always looking for little confirmations from the heavens, from my guides, from my angels, from my higher self”.
“When I’m looking for it, it’s pretty loud,” she added. During her Texan space training this week, Perry said she had noticed two unexpected coincidences linked to nicknames her mother calls her.
She said:
When I was invited to come on this voyage, I looked up the capsule. On the very front of it is the outline in the shape of a feather and when I saw that it was like a total confirmation because my mum has always called me feather.
And so I’m in space training today and there’s a lot to digest. We’re almost finished with the day and they showed us the capsule and we run simulations in another capsule and tested the noise and what to expect and all these different things and they reveal the capsule name.
The capsule’s name is Tortoise. A wave, just the most energetic wave, just shot through my body. And I was like, ‘What? This capsule’s name is Tortoise?’
My mum calls me two nicknames. Feather and tortoise. What are the chances that I’m going to space on a rocket in a capsule with my symbol, the feather, called Tortoise?
She added: “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.”
Lauren Sanchez’s all-female space flight is about to blast off
Good morning and welcome to our blog covering Blue Origin’s 11th human flight as Jeff Bezos blasts his bride-to-be, Lauren Sánchez, and five other women into space in what is being billed as the first all-female crew to attempt such a mission.
A crew of six women – Amanda Nguyen, a civil rights activist who will become the first Vietnamese woman to fly to space; the CBS Mornings co-host Gayle King; the pop star Katy Perry; film producer Kerianne Flynn; entrepreneur and former Nasa rocket scientist Aisha Bowe; and Sánchez, a journalist and philanthropist – will blast off on Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket from the company’s launch site, 30 miles north of Van Horn, Texas, on an 11-minute, suborbital flight to the edge of space and back.
Though billed as the first all-female crew to reach the Kármán line, the internationally recognised boundary of space at an altitude of 62 miles, it is not technically so: the cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova flew a solo mission to space in 1963.
But Tereshkova didn’t blast off with the accoutrements afforded the new ladies of space. “We’re a crew!” they reportedly shouted in unison at a photoshoot for Elle magazine, each rocking “an all-black power look”. The magazine noted that this will be the first time anyone has been to space with their hair and makeup done.
“Who would not get glam before the flight?” Sánchez remarked. Perry added: “Space is going to finally be glam. Let me tell you something. If I could take glam up with me, I would do that. We are going to put the ‘ass’ in astronaut.”
For our full preview of the flight, see here: