Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin is preparing to put pop singer / songwriter Katy Perry into space, along with five other women: former NASA scientists Aisha Bowe and Amanda Nguyen, journalist Gayle King, journalist and Bezos fiancée Lauren Sánchez, and film producer Kerianne Flynn. Their flight, called NS-31, will launch aboard Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket, with a launch window opening at 8:30AM CT / 9:30AM ET. It’s being livestreamed both on YouTube and Blue Origin’s website.
Past New Shepard flights have taken passengers just to the edge of space, where they’re allowed allowed to unbuckle and roam freely for a few minutes inside the capsule before buckling up again for re-entry. The capsule then deploys a parachute and touches back down in west Texas. During the flight, the New Shepard rocket itself returns to its landing pad.
In a video posted to Instagram before the flight, Perry said she plans to make a “special reveal coming to you from zero gravity.” She posted an earlier video touring the capsule that she and the others will be aboard, and said she will probably sing in space.
This is Blue Origin’s 31st New Shepard launch. The rocket’s last flight was in February, and previous tourists aboard it include William Shatner, and 90-year-old Ed Dwight, who was America’s first astronaut candidate, but who never made it to space.
