In a historic announcement, aerospace company Blue Origin confirmed plans for its first all-female suborbital flight, slated for the spring. The high-profile crew will include pop singer Katy Perry, Lauren Sanchez—journalist and fiancée to billionaire Jeff Bezos—CBS Mornings co-host Gayle King, research scientist Amanda Nguyen, former NASA rocket scientist Aisha Bowe, and film producer Kerianne Flynn.
This mission will mark the first time an all-female team ventures into space since the legendary solo flight of Russian cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova in 1963.
Founded by Amazon owner Jeff Bezos, Blue Origin began sending tourists and celebrities into space in 2021 aboard its New Shepard rocket, named after Alan Shepard, the first American in space. These short missions typically last about 10 to 11 minutes, from liftoff to touchdown. During the flight, passengers experience a few minutes of microgravity as their capsule crosses the Karman line, the internationally recognized boundary of space located 100 kilometers (roughly 62 miles) above sea level.
Blue Origin’s suborbital flights launch from the company’s primary facility in western Texas. Thus far, the private venture has completed 10 manned missions, flying a total of 52 people into suborbital space. Past passengers include Star Trek actor William Shatner and Bezos himself, who made the inaugural crewed flight in July 2021. Ticket prices remain undisclosed, and it is widely believed that many celebrities receive complimentary seats.
In addition to suborbital missions, Blue Origin has been developing its New Glenn rocket, which recently completed its first orbital test flight. While Elon Musk, the world’s richest person, focuses on Mars colonization through his company SpaceX, Jeff Bezos has outlined a different long-term vision: moving heavy industry off Earth and onto floating space platforms, preserving the planet as “the blue origin of humanity.”
Should the upcoming all-female flight succeed as planned, it will stand out as another milestone in commercial space travel—and a testament to Blue Origin’s mission of making space more accessible to a diverse range of explorers.
