Mission NS-31 launched at 9:30 a.m. Eastern Time (4:30 p.m. Kiev time) on 14 April from the Blue Origin pad in West Texas. The flight was the first all-female Spaceflight in modern history since Soviet cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova embarked on a three-day mission to orbit the Earth back in 1963.
The crew included:
- Katy Perry – world-renowned pop star and singer;
- Gayle King, co-host of CBS Mornings;
- Aisha Bowe, former NASA scientist and founder of STEMBoard;
- Keriann Flynn – filmmaker;
- Amanda Nguyen – bioastronautics researcher, author, Nobel Peace Prize nominee and the first Vietnamese woman in space;
- Lauren Sanchez – journalist, author and fiancée of Jeff Bezos, who spearheaded the flight.
Katy Perry took a daisy with her into space, a symbol of love for her four-year-old daughter Daisy. Before the launch, she shared her emotions:
‘I am overwhelmed with love and gratitude for representing the fearless woman in my family,
– she said.
Katy Perry also confessed that it had been her dream since she was 15 to take off into space. And with this flight the most important thing she wanted to prove to her four-year-old daughter that in fact there is no limit to dreams. And just an hour after landing on Earth, the singer noted that she was very overwhelmed with emotions of love.
“I have never felt such love as I did today. I have a special revelation after feeling weightlessness: I love you so much! Nothing makes sense if it doesn’t equal love,” Perry said.
New Shepard reached an altitude of more than 100 kilometres above sea level, crossing the notional boundary of space, the Karman Line. The mission participants spent several minutes in weightlessness, observing Earth against the backdrop of black space.
The flight lasted only 10.5 minutes, after which the capsule with the crew successfully landed under parachutes in Texas. The rocket booster returned to the launch platform 7.5 minutes after launch.
Each of the participants joined in creating the NS-31 mission emblem. in particular, the scales symbolise Amanda Nguyen’s struggle for civil rights, while the fireworks represent Katy Perry’s cultural influence on world music, as well as being a reference to the artist’s song of the same name.
It was the 31st launch of the reusable New Shepard rocket and the 11th with a crew on board. Katy Perry probably became the most famous person to ever go into space with Blue Origin.