Pop superstar Katy Perry will soon become one of the most famous celebrities to travel to the edge of space. The “Firework” and “California Gurls” singer is set to lift off on Monday aboard a Blue Origin spacecraft, part of a historic all-female mission organized by Jeff Bezos’ space company.
The sub-orbital flight will launch from Blue Origin’s West Texas site at approximately 8:30 am local time (1330 GMT). Perry will be joined by five other women, including Bezos’ fiancée and pilot Lauren Sanchez, TV host Gayle King, film producer Kerianne Flynn, former NASA engineer Aisha Bowe, and activist Amanda Nguyen.
This marks the first all-female space crew since Soviet cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova’s solo mission in 1963. The mission will also be Blue Origin’s 11th crewed sub-orbital flight aboard its New Shepard rocket.
The journey will last around 10 minutes and take passengers more than 100 kilometers (over 60 miles) above Earth, crossing the Karman line—the internationally recognized boundary of space. During the flight, the capsule will separate from the booster rocket and offer a brief period of weightlessness, allowing the passengers to float freely before descending gently under parachutes, aided by retro rockets.
Katy Perry shared with Elle magazine that her motivation for the trip is her daughter, Daisy, whom she shares with actor Orlando Bloom. “I’m doing this for my daughter… to inspire her to never have limits on her dreams,” Perry said. “I’m just so excited to see the inspiration through her eyes… when she sees that rocket go, and she goes back to school the next day and says, ‘Mom went to space.’”
Blue Origin, which has already flown 52 people on similar missions—including “Star Trek” actor William Shatner—has not disclosed the price of these space tourism trips. The company is using such high-profile missions to maintain public interest and compete with rivals like Virgin Galactic and SpaceX. While Virgin Galactic offers similar sub-orbital experiences, Blue Origin aims to advance toward orbital missions, bolstered by the successful unmanned launch of its powerful New Glenn rocket earlier this year.
