Van Horn, Texas: Pop superstar Katy Perry and five other women returned safely to Earth following a successful suborbital spaceflight aboard Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin New Shepard rocket.
The mission marked a notable moment for private space travel, featuring an all-female crew that included high-profile figures from entertainment, science, and activism.
Joining Perry were Lauren Sánchez, Bezos’s fiancée; Gayle King, CBS presenter; Aisha Bowe, a former NASA rocket scientist; Amanda Nguyen, a civil rights activist; and film producer Kerianne Flynn.
The rocket launched from West Texas on 14th April, 2025, at approximately 08:30 local time, and the flight lasted around 11 minutes, reaching more than 100 km (62 miles) above the Earth, crossing the Kármán Line, the internationally recognized boundary of space.
The journey gave the crew a few moments of weightlessness before the capsule returned to Earth with a parachute-assisted landing.
The booster also successfully landed two miles from the launch pad. Blue Origin’s Dave Limp and Audrey Powers, along with Bezos, welcomed the crew on their return.
✨ Weightless and limitless. pic.twitter.com/GQgHd0aw7i
— Blue Origin (@blueorigin) April 14, 2025
Sánchez, the first to exit the capsule, tearfully expressed pride in the experience and shared that she saw the moon and was surprised by the Earth’s peaceful yet alive appearance from space.
Katy Perry followed, kissing the ground and lifting a daisy to the sky in tribute to her daughter, Daisy. Gayle King also knelt to kiss the ground, overwhelmed with emotion, while Kerianne Flynn pointed skyward and exclaimed, “I went to space.”
The launch was watched by several celebrities, including Khloé Kardashian, who expressed her awe and emotional reaction, calling the event “hard to explain.” Oprah Winfrey also commented on King’s accomplishment, noting her friend’s fear of flying and praising her bravery.
The spacecraft was fully autonomous and required no manual operation from the passengers, who played no role in piloting the vehicle.
This Blue Origin flight is only the second all-female space mission in history, the first being Soviet cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova’s solo mission aboard Vostok 6 over 60 years ago.
While some critics argue that commercial spaceflights prioritize tourism over scientific advancement, successful missions like this are seen as pivotal in proving the safety and viability of the emerging space tourism industry.
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