Closing summary
An all-female crew, including the pop star Katy Perry, are back on Earth after completing a trip to the edge of outer space on a rocket belonging to Jeff Bezos.
Blue Origin’s New Shepard NS-31 mission made the trip to the Kármán line – the internationally recognised boundary of space – to float about, weightlessly, in the rocket’s capsule for three minutes before returning to Earth.
Its crew consisted of Perry, morning TV host Gayle King, former Nasa rocket scientist Aisha Bowe, civil rights activist Amanda Nguyen, film producer Kerianne Flynn, and Bezos’s fiancee, Lauren Sánchez
The flight was the 11th human flight for the New Shepard program, which has flown 52 people, including repeat astronauts, to the Kármán line
Perry said she would “100%” record a song about her experience, which she described as being as coming only second to becoming a mother. King revealed that Perry sang a rendition of Louis Armstrong’s “What a Wonderful World” while in space
Blue Origin has published its stats from today’s mission:
The Crew Capsule reached an apogee of 346,802 ft AGL / 350,449 ft MSL (106 km AGL / 107 km MSL).
The booster reached an apogee of 346,481 ft AGL / 350,128 ft MSL (106 km AGL / 107 km MSL).
Official launch time was 8:30:00 AM CDT / 13:30:00 UTC.
Capsule landing occurred at 8:40:21 AM CDT / 13:40:21 UTC.
The mission elapsed time was 10 min 21 sec.
Jared Isaacman, a billionaire tech CEO and Donald Trump’s pick to lead Nasa, has congratulated Blue Origin and the crew.
“Opening this incredible frontier – from the few to the many – is the dream,” Issacman posted to X.
Isaacman has privately funded his own journeys into space and is a close friend of SpaceX founder and Trump acolyte Elon Musk.
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Katy Perry says space flight second only to being a mother
Here comes Katy Perry. She opens up her post-match interview by saying “I feel super connected to love”.
The experience has shown her how much love is inside of her, she says, adding that you cannot know how much you are loved “until the day you launch”.
Speaking about her daughter Daisy watching on and why she carried a daisy flower on the flight, she says:
Daisies are common flowers but they grow through any condition. They grow through cement, cracks, walls. They are resilient, they are strong, they are everywhere.
Flowers, to me, are God’s smile but they are also a reminder of our beautiful Earth. The beautiful magic is everywhere, all around us, even in a simple daisy.
Speaking about singing ‘What a Wonderful Life’ on the descent, she says it’s not about her and that “it is all for the benefit of Earth”. The experience today is only second to being a mother, she says.
There we go. Anyway, I’m going to leave you in the capable hands of my colleague Léonie Chao-Fong while I take a moment digest what we have all just witnessed. Back in a bit.
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Former Nasa rocket scientist Aisha Bowe says “there’s no boundaries, there’s no borders, there’s just Earth” when you get up to the edge of space.
She says the best part was “the whole thing”. She says:
When we got up there and out of our seats, we all just looked at each other.
There was this moment – and I can’t wait for everyone to see it on the video – between all of us and it’s just beautiful, so beautiful.
She says her 92-year-old grandfather watching on was nervous but then “Oprah squeezed him”.
Speaking to young boys and girls watching today, she says:
Dream it, plan it and go and do it. I never really thought I could go to space … but today just confirmed dreams are real and sometimes reality is wrong.
Gayle King says space flight is 'reminder we need to do better … as human beings'
Gayle King says she still cannot accept the word “astronaut” and that “what happened to us was not a ride, it was a bona fide frickin’ flight”.
She is reiterating how fearful of flying she is and that she is “so proud of herself” for doing it.
She adds:
For me, it’s such a reminder that we need to do better, be better, as human beings.
If everyone could experience the peace we had up there and the kindness … I’ll never, ever, ever forget.
King adds that Perry would not sing Firework or Roar because she didn’t want to make the event about herself. But she did sing What a Wonderful World on the approach back to Earth.
That was the best part of the entire expedition, she says.
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Amanda Nguyen is speaking now and expressing her gratitude to everyone who made the launch happen.
She is very emotional and tells us “no dream is too wild”.
Meanwhile, Kerianne Flynn is also emotional and says:
It was the most incredible experience of my life to be up there and see such vast darkness in space and look down on our planet.
The moon was so beautiful and I felt like that was a special gift just for me.
She adds:
I just hope these types of experiences will clear the path for everyone to be able to do that.
Now, there’s a thought.
Lauren Sanchez describes feeling of 'joy and camaraderie'
Lauren Sanchez is telling the interviewer that “we are all connected” and now she just wants to hug everyone and tell them “we are all in this together”.
She is questioning how we feel divided by state lines but that we are all connected really. Joy is the emotion she feels, she says.
Sanchez adds:
It was a feeling of joy and camaraderie. A feeling of gratefulness. A feeling of ‘we are doing this’.
She bursts into tears as she acknowledges the achievement of the six female astronauts.
She says: “I don’t even know how this is going to change me.”
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Katy Perry kisses ground - photos of women emerging from capsule
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All-female crew emerges from capsule
They are starting to leave the capsule, amid screams from friends and family at the sidelines.
Lauren Sanchez does indeed emerge first and asks where her babies are. Bezos, after releasing her from a hug (expect to see that on all the front pages tomorrow), tells her to go find her babies. So, off she goes.
Next out is Katy Perry, who proceeds to kiss the hot sand of the Texas desert. Gayle King does the same thing. It’s like watching Rafa Nadal win at Roland-Garros all over again.
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Multi-billionaire and Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos is standing outside the capsule, waiting for the women to emerge from the hatch.
His fiancee, Lauren Sanchez, is in seat one, so will exit first. There’s plenty of film crews and photographers on hand to capture the sheer emotion of the situation.
Meanwhile, the US television hosts are speculating about how Katy Perry might be changed now that she has seen the curvature of the Earth.
Katy Perry, Jeff Bezos’ fiancee Lauren Sanchez and four others arrive back on Earth after space flight
Here are some images of the Blue Origin capsule landing back in Texas…
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The capsule, shaped like a giant Tunnock’s tea cake, has touched down amid a lot of excitement from those on board.
The voice on the radio says “congratulations and welcome back to Earth”.
There’s applause and cheers among the spectators. All six of the women appear to be fine.
It seemed a bit of a bumpy landing to me but apparently that’s par for the course with vanity space trips.
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Rocket coming back down to land
Well, that was quick. The rocket is already coming back down to land.
There’s the sonic boom as it re-enters the atmosphere. Crikey, that was loud.
The engines have started up. It’s touched down amid a cloud of steam but the television coverage expert says it was a perfect landing.
Here comes the capsule with the six women. They’re screaming as the parachutes float out.
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There is a lot of excitement from the astronauts coming through the radio back to Earth.
It’s hard to know who is saying what but there is a lot of “oh my god” and “woah”.
The women will be experiencing weightlessness and will likely be bobbing around in the capsule right about now.
Someone has just said “oh my god guys, look at that”. Could it be the moon they are admiring?
Still no vocals from Katy Perry, I can confirm.
We have lift off
And they’re off. The rocket launches into the sky and we have lift off.
It’s just passed through 80,000 ft and has gone supersonic.
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It’s a clear, crisp morning in Texas. There’s a crackle of anticipation among the supporters gathered to watch the big launch.
A lot at stake here. This launch could be the defining moment for Blue Origin’s reputation in space travel.
We are at T-minus two minutes and the gantry is pulling back from the rocket.
Stay tuned (and now might be a good time to start watching the live feed)…
We are now at T-minus seven minutes and we are edging closer to the big launch.
Oprah Winfrey is “courtside” and is telling telvision journalists how she has never been prouder of her friend Gayle King, who has a fear of flying and doesn’t enjoy turbulence.
Oprah is wearing yellow because King’s call sign is Sunshine. Meanwhile, pop star Katy Perry’s call sign is Feather.
Perry says she plans to “sing in space” during the flight. You can only hope for her fellow passengers that it’s her earlier material.
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In a television interview, the journalist Gayle King is talking about how she sought advice from Oprah Winfrey among others before agreeing to join the flight.
She says she wants the message to children watching today to be “no dream is too big”.
So, as long as you are mates with the second-richest person on the planet, you too could have an 11-minute jaunt into space, kids.
King goes on to say that her good friend LL Cool J once told her “dreams don’t have deadlines”. That’s deep.
Bezos tells women they're about to have 'most profound experience'
Bezos can be heard over the radio transmission telling Sanchez he wishes he was going up with her and that he loves her.
He goes on to say that he “can’t wait to hear how it’s changed you” when she returns to Earth.
He said:
Most amazing, most profound experience. I’m so excited for you, I don’t wanna get off. I wanna go with you.
When you get back I can’t wait to hear how it’s changed you. I love all of you. God speed!
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And now the women are boarding the capsule, with each of them ringing a bell as they walk towards the NS-21.
Blue Origin founder and billionaire Jeff Bezos is present to give his fiancee, Lauren Sanchez, a farewell hug and kiss.
They are in the capsule, getting into their seats and harnesses and now we wait for the launch.
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For those not following the live feed, the six women are now being given their final instructions in the “safety room”.
We are now at T-minus 34 minutes. This will be Blue Origin’s eleventh human flight.
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Trips like these raise questions: are they anything more than joy rides – and do they need to be?
Gayle King said she “had a lot of trepidation – I still do – but I also know it’s very interesting to be terrified and excited at the same time. I haven’t felt like this since childbirth. Because I knew childbirth was going to hurt. But it’s also stepping out of your comfort zone.”
The actor William Shatner, AKA Capt James T Kirk of the Starship Enterprise, took one of the first flights on Bezos’s rocket at the age of 90 in 2022. He said he was surprised by his own reaction to the experience – and moved to tears.
“When I looked in the opposite direction, into space, there was no mystery, no majestic awe to behold … All I saw was death. I saw a cold, dark, black emptiness. It was unlike any blackness you can see or feel on Earth. It was deep, enveloping, all-encompassing. It was among the strongest feelings of grief I have ever encountered,” he added.
For Bezos, however, the all-female trip may be more than a curated joyride in a rocket that flies itself. The Amazon co-founder is locked in a competitive commercial space launch industry battle with Elon Musk. Rockets from Musk’s Space X Falcon 9 family have launched 469 times.
By contrast, Blue Origin has completed a mere 31 successful launches of its New Shepard vehicle, including 11 crewed suborbital flights.
What you need to know about the Blue Origin space flight
Mission NS-31 is historic, marking the first time since 1963 that an all-female crew has launched into space, highlighting a significant moment in space exploration and gender representation.
Though billed as the first all-female crew to reach the Kármán line, the internationally recognised boundary of space at an altitude of 62 miles, it is not technically so: the cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova flew a solo mission to space in 1963.
The mission features several well-known public figures, including: Katy Perry, international pop star; Gayle King, a respected broadcasting personality known for her work on television and in journalism; Lauren Sánchez, a journalist and media personality, who is also the fiancee of Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon and owner of Blue Origin.
Developed by Blue Origin, the spacecraft is built to be fully reusable and is specifically engineered for human spaceflight.
The rocket operates without pilots. Instead, passengers ride in a compact, round crew capsule positioned at the top of the vehicle.
The launch window for Mission NS-31 opens at 8:30am local time in Texas (2.30pm BST), with liftoff taking place from Blue Origin’s launch site in the state.
Katy Perry is undertaking final preparations before she joins an all-female crew on a BlueOrigin space flight.
The US pop star will join five other women for the first female-only mission in more than six decades, PA Media reported.
The crew – made up of Perry, former Nasa rocket scientist Aisha Bowe, civil rights activist Amanda Nguyen, film producer Kerianne Flynn, and journalist Lauren Sanchez – managed to get in some last-minute astronaut lessons in Texas on Sunday, according to photos shared online by BlueOrigin.
Perry also shared some snaps of her own, vowing to put “the ‘ass’ in astronaut” in the coming hours in a post with Sanchez. The two can be seen clad in blue jumpsuits, especially made by Sanchez for the mission.
The US-based journalist told the New York Times earlier in the week that her jumpsuit design manages to “bring a little spice to space” while also being shaped to the female form.
Earlier on Sunday, Perry said she had been given “confirmation” that her journey aboard the rocket on 14 April was written in the stars.
In a video posted to Instagram, she said she is “always looking for little confirmations from the heavens, from my guides, from my angels, from my higher self”.
“When I’m looking for it, it’s pretty loud,” she added. During her Texan space training this week, Perry said she had noticed two unexpected coincidences linked to nicknames her mother calls her.
She said:
When I was invited to come on this voyage, I looked up the capsule. On the very front of it is the outline in the shape of a feather and when I saw that it was like a total confirmation because my mum has always called me feather.
And so I’m in space training today and there’s a lot to digest. We’re almost finished with the day and they showed us the capsule and we run simulations in another capsule and tested the noise and what to expect and all these different things and they reveal the capsule name.
The capsule’s name is Tortoise. A wave, just the most energetic wave, just shot through my body. And I was like, ‘What? This capsule’s name is Tortoise?’
My mum calls me two nicknames. Feather and tortoise. What are the chances that I’m going to space on a rocket in a capsule with my symbol, the feather, called Tortoise?
She added: “There are no coincidences, and I’m just so grateful for these confirmations and so grateful that I feel like something bigger than me is steering the ship.”
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Lauren Sanchez’s all-female space flight is about to blast off
Good morning and welcome to our blog covering Blue Origin’s 11th human flight as Jeff Bezos blasts his bride-to-be, Lauren Sánchez, and five other women into space in what is being billed as the first all-female crew to attempt such a mission.
A crew of six women – Amanda Nguyen, a civil rights activist who will become the first Vietnamese woman to fly to space; the CBS Mornings co-host Gayle King; the pop star Katy Perry; film producer Kerianne Flynn; entrepreneur and former Nasa rocket scientist Aisha Bowe; and Sánchez, a journalist and philanthropist – will blast off on Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket from the company’s launch site, 30 miles north of Van Horn, Texas, on an 11-minute, suborbital flight to the edge of space and back.
Though billed as the first all-female crew to reach the Kármán line, the internationally recognised boundary of space at an altitude of 62 miles, it is not technically so: the cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova flew a solo mission to space in 1963.
But Tereshkova didn’t blast off with the accoutrements afforded the new ladies of space. “We’re a crew!” they reportedly shouted in unison at a photoshoot for Elle magazine, each rocking “an all-black power look”. The magazine noted that this will be the first time anyone has been to space with their hair and makeup done.
“Who would not get glam before the flight?” Sánchez remarked. Perry added: “Space is going to finally be glam. Let me tell you something. If I could take glam up with me, I would do that. We are going to put the ‘ass’ in astronaut.”
For our full preview of the flight, see here:
