Queue “E.T.” – Katy Perry went intergalactic (literally).
The singer, along with several other members of a star-studded, all-female crew, blasted off Monday as part of Blue Origin’s latest space mission. Perry put her pop star duties on hold to explore the outer orbit for 11 minutes.
The mission, called NS-31, also included television personality Gayle King and journalist Lauren Sánchez, who is engaged to Blue Origin (and Amazon) founder Jeff Bezos. The crew is rounded out by former NASA rocket scientist Aisha Bowe, bioastronautics research scientist Amanda Nguyen and film producer Kerianne Flynn. When the six women blast off, they’ll become the first all-female space crew in more than 60 years, Blue Origin has said.
In the lead-up to the flight, Perry, King and Sánchez have all expressed nerves but also an eagerness to bring what they see as a female finesse to space.
“I love you,” Perry posted on X in all caps Monday morning, hinting at a last earthly goodbye.
The space capsule holding Perry, King and their peers launched Monday morning as a breathless crowd watched on.
Amid the dry, already alien-like backdrop of the Texas desert, Blue Origin workers and families of the six-woman all-female crew – the first of its kind – saw the rocket lift upward and turn a pop star, a journalist, an activist and others into astronauts.
When will Katy Perry, Gayle King, others head to space? How to watch Blue Origin launch livestream
The launch is happening at Launch Site One in Southwest Texas.
A livestream is scheduled to begin at 8 a.m. ET, with the launch window beginning at 9:30 a.m. ET.
Gayle King, Katy Perry head to space in historic flight
Blue Origin’s “New Shepard” space vehicle will historically carry an all-female crew, including Katy Perry and Gayle King, to space.
King’s best friend Oprah Winfrey watched on as her friend and fellow famed interviewer readied to take flight.
“I’ve never been more proud of my friend than today,” Winfrey said, adding that she felt very calm about the whole ordeal. Winfrey wore a bright yellow sweater in honor of King’s call signs which is sunshine.
“This is bigger than just going to space,” she said of her friend who has long been a fearful flier. “This is overcoming a wall of fear. I think it’s going to be cathartic.”
Before blast-off, King told Blue Origin that when she first began toying with the idea of going to space her children and Winfrey signaled immediate support.
Winfrey immediately encouraged her to take the chance, King said, saying her friend pointed out how much regret she might have if she had to watch the flight take off and wonder about what it would be like to be on it.
“You should always know that no dream is too big,” King said.
As the all-female crew readied for takeoff, watchers were treated to a celebrity-studded sendoff with part of the Kardashian-Jenner family showing up to signal support.
“It’s really something,” Kris Jenner said, adding that Kim Kardashian was supposed to attend as well but was studying for a law school exam. “It’s a very brave thing to do,” she added of the space flight.
“Really whatever you dream of it is in our reach,” Khloe Kardashian added. “Dream big, wish for the stars and one day you can maybe be amongst them.”
Named after astronaut Alan Shepard, the first American in space, the gum drop-shaped New Shepard launch vehicle is designed to be fully reusable
The spacecraft operates autonomously – meaning no pilots or professional astronauts are aboard.
Launches with celebrity crews may attract headlines, but the majority of spaceflights Blue Origin has conducted to date with New Shepard haven’t even had humans aboard at all. Across 30 total spaceflights, an uncrewed New Shepard spacecraft has multiple times flown with scientific payloads on behalf of paying customers, including NASA.
For nearly four years since its first crewed spaceflight, New Shepard has served as a powerful symbol of Blue Origin’s commercial spaceflight ambitions amid a growing space tourism industry.
Spaceflight, once a sector dominated by government space agencies like NASA, is increasingly becoming a commercial enterprise as billionaire-led companies like Bezos’ Blue Origin, Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic look to develop their own spacecraft.
The U.S. space agency is even poised to soon be potentially led by Jared Isaacman, himself a billionaire who has funded two of his own private spaceflights with SpaceX.
As Perry, King and the rest of the crew prepared for takeoff, they loaded up into a set of trucks with the windows open, waving to loved ones and Blue Origin workers. Bezos drove one of the Rivian trucks with fiancée Sánchez.
Where flights set to enter full orbit and remain in space for a few days require their astronauts to quarantine, this 11-minute flight doesn’t hold the same requirements, allowing for the women to give cameras a shot of them reaching out to fans and family for a personal send-off.
In a pre-flight interview, a tearful Perry talked about the love she felt for her family and a sense of pride about what the trip represents. Perry revealed she will bring a real-life daisy with her into orbit, to remind her of the preciousness of the earth (and a tribute to her daughter Daisy, no doubt).
“The message to my family is that I love them so much. And I am so grateful to be representing a fearless female in my family which is a domino effect from my mom, from my sister and definitely something I feel from my daughter,” she said.
The New Shepard’s crew capsule can hold up to six people for a brief voyage above the Kármán Line – the 62-mile-high internationally recognized boundary of space.
Each spaceflight lasts about 11 minutes from liftoff to capsule touchdown. The capsule also comes outfitted with large windows for them to enjoy the stunning view of Earth.
During each launch, the crew will become supersonic as the rocket reaches initial speeds exceeding 2,000 mph – much faster than the speed of sound. The capsule will within minutes separate from the rocket booster, at which point the women aboard will become weightless as their spacecraft continues toward apogee, or its highest point.
The booster, meanwhile, heads back to the ground while firing its engines and using its fins to slow and control its descent to land about two miles from the launchpad. The capsule itself will make a parachute-assisted landing in the west Texas desert.
Katy Perry space flight glam: ‘I’m going to be wearing lipstick’
“Space is going to finally be glam,” Perry told Elle magazine earlier this month, revealing she would be getting her hair and makeup done for the mission. “Let me tell you something. If I could take glam up with me, I would do that.”
“We’re going to have lash extensions flying in the capsule!” Sánchez joked, assuring a worried King that hers are securely glued on so they would stay put.
“I think it’s so important for people to see us like that. This dichotomy of engineer and scientist, and then beauty and fashion,” Nguyen added. “We contain multitudes. Women are multitudes. I’m going to be wearing lipstick.”
King, who has achieved icon status as a television host and author, said while she’s sure others seeing her up there will hold significance, one audience member stands out as special.
“My grandson, who’s 3½, thinks it’s the coolest thing,” she told Elle. “He will be there at the launch. He already has a little astronaut uniform.”
Gayle King admits to having nerves before Blue Origin flight
Mere days ahead of he expedition, King admitted to having some nerves in an interview with Vladimir Duthiers for “CBS Mornings” that released April 11.
“I’ll be ready Monday morning, I promise,” she said. ” But I still have a ways to go before I’m like, ‘OK, put me in, coach. Let’s go.'”
She explained the historic nature of the space launch is what encouraged her to be part of the adventure.
“There was something about being part of the first female team to me,” she said. “The group of women that they put together is so extraordinary to me that I thought, ‘Wow. Why would I not wanna be a part of that?'”
“I’m looking forward to just floating in space, and just seeing what that feels like, and what that looks like,” she said.
William Shatner space flight, more celebrities in space
Monday’s blast-off represents the first all-woman flight to space since the Soviet Union’s Valentina Tereshkova’s solo venture in 1963.
Perry and King are not the first big-name stars to take their fame into orbit, however: “Star Trek” actor William Shatner became the oldest person to head to space in 2021, and NFL player turned television host Michael Strahan also boarded a Blue Origin flight that same year.
Contributing: KiMi Robinson, USA TODAY; Natassia Paloma, El Paso Times