The new Booster Shepard approaches the touchdown of April 14 during NS-31. Credit: Blue Origin
On Monday morning, a group of civilians for the whole female including the pop star Katy Perry and the award -winning Gayle King transmission journalist flew to the limit of space and return.
Perry, King and four others have been selected as New Shepard Mission 31 (NS-31) by Blue Origin, which was launched at 9:30 am from the company’s launch site in the Western Texas. NS-31 was the eleventh mission of Blue Origin crew and the first space flight to fly with only women since 1963, according to the company.
At the end of the flight, the six civil astronauts made an emotional exit from New Shepard, kissing the ground, pumping the fists and celebrating with friends and family. The owner of Blue Origin Jeff Bezos was also present to greet them. The mission lasted about 10 minutes and 21 seconds.
The new Blue Origin Shepard missions are a bit different from the recent excursions completed by the Spacex dragon. During the Missions Polaris Dawn and Fram2 of Spacex, for example, civil astronauts reached first historians and led days of experiments in orbit. New Shepard, on the contrary, is oriented towards spatial tourism flights that last just over 10 minutes.
From the inaugural journey of the space vehicle in 2021 – which included Bezos – has flown more than 50 passengers. Other high -profile customers include Star Trek The William Shatner icon and the Hall of Fame of the NFL Michael Strahan.
The emerging journeys of Blast Crewambers beyond the Kármán-a border line generally accepted between the earth and the space at 62 miles of altitude-the speed of the sound three times. Monday’s flight reached an apogee of about 65 miles. At that altitude, the crew experiences some moments of lack of gravity and look at the planet below through the dome of the capsule. During the descent, the new reusable Shepard booster lands a few kilometers north of the launch pad, while the crew capsule moves gently to the ground on the parachute.
That was the flight profile for the NS-31 mission for the whole female organized by the members of the crew of Lauren Sánchez, journalist, philanthropist and girlfriend of Bezos. An authorized helicopter pilot and owner of a film and air production company, Sánchez in 2024, obtained the Elling Halvorson Vertical Flight Hall of Fame Award. He also wrote the children’s book The fly that flew into space.
Joining Sánchez, Perry and King was an entrepreneur and former Nasa Aisha Bowe rocket scientist, who never had the opportunity to fly into orbit for the space agency. The members of the crew Amanda Nguyễn – a nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize and Bioastronautica researcher who worked on the final flight of NASA’s space shuttle – in the meantime, has become the first Vietnamese astronaut. To complete the crew was the film producer Kerianne Flynn, who previously signed up for a spatial tourism flight with the competitor Blue Origin Virgin Galactic.
Note of the editor: A version of this story originally appeared on the flight.
