In a landmark moment for private space travel, a team of six women—including pop icon Katy Perry and Lauren Sánchez, the fiancée of Jeff Bezos—successfully completed a suborbital flight aboard a Blue Origin rocket on Monday. This marked the first all-female space mission in six decades.
The mission, operated by Blue Origin, the space company founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos, launched at 9:31 AM from West Texas. The crew traveled to the edge of space aboard the New Shepard rocket, where they briefly experienced microgravity. The entire flight lasted approximately 11 minutes before the capsule returned safely to Earth.
Alongside Katy Perry and Lauren Sánchez, the crew included CBS broadcaster Gayle King, former NASA rocket scientist Aisha Bowe, civil rights activist and scientist Amanda Nguyen, and film producer Keriann Flynn.
Following the capsule’s landing, Lauren Sánchez was seen stepping out and being warmly embraced by Jeff Bezos in a moment captured on video. Speaking about the experience, Gayle King shared that after the period of weightlessness, Katy Perry sang “What a Wonderful World,” the iconic song by Louis Armstrong, as the crew returned to their seats.
Reflecting on the mission, Katy Perry said, “I feel so connected with love.” She also revealed that she carried a daisy flower to space in honor of her daughter, Daisy, and brought it back with her.
The launch was witnessed by several high-profile guests, including Oprah Winfrey, a close friend of Gayle King, who was seen visibly emotional. Other celebrities in attendance included Kris Jenner and Khloé Kardashian.
This mission stands as the first all-women spaceflight since Soviet cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova’s historic solo orbit around Earth in 1963, which lasted nearly three days. Monday’s successful flight is seen as another major milestone for Blue Origin’s New Shepard program and for women in space exploration.
