Katy Perry-led all-female crew flies to the edge of space on Blue Origin rocket

Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin has successfully launched pop singer Katy Perry into space along with five other women. The New Shepard rocket lifted off at 4:30 p.m. Moscow time. The flight was broadcast live on YouTube and the Blue Origin website. Seven minutes after launch, the New Shepard rocket returned safely to the landing pad. The capsule with the tourists landed with the help of parachutes three minutes later.

Image source: Blue Otigin

In addition to the pop diva, the crew includes former NASA scientists Aisha Bowe and Amanda Nguyen, journalists Gayle King and Lauren Sánchez, and film producer Kerianne Flynn. New Shepard flights take passengers to the edge of space, where they are allowed to unbuckle their seatbelts and move around freely for a few minutes inside the capsule before being seated again for the return to Earth.

Before the flight, Perry announced that she was planning a “special discovery that will come to you from zero gravity.” She posted a previously filmed video of her inspection of the passenger capsule and promised to sing in space. The live broadcast was interrupted several times, and viewers were never able to find out what kind of “special discovery” the singer was preparing. Perhaps a video filmed on board will be published later.

The previous launch of Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket took place in February, and among the space tourists then was 90-year-old Ed Dwight, the first African-American U.S. astronaut candidate who never went into space, thus restoring historical justice.