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Blue Origin successfully launched its first all-female crew into space on Monday, marking a significant milestone in commercial spaceflight. The 11-minute suborbital journey aboard the New Shepard rocket carried six prominent women, including pop star Katy Perry and journalist Gayle King.
The mission, designated NS-31, lifted off from Blue Origin's Launch Site One in West Texas at 9:30 a.m. EDT. The crew also included Lauren Sánchez, journalist and fiancée of Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos; Aisha Bowe, a former NASA rocket scientist and CEO of STEMBoard; Amanda Nguyen, a civil rights activist and bioastronautics research scientist; and Kerianne Flynn, a film producer.
The flight reached the Kármán line, the internationally recognized boundary of space 62 miles above Earth, allowing the passengers to experience approximately ten minutes of weightlessness before returning safely to Earth.
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This mission marked the first all-female spaceflight since Soviet cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova's solo journey in 1963. Notably, Bowe became the first Bahamian woman in space, and Nguyen the first Vietnamese and Southeast Asian woman to achieve this milestone.
The crew capsule separated from the booster about two minutes into the flight and later returned safely with the passengers. Spectators, including Oprah Winfrey, Kris Jenner and Khloé Kardashian, watched the launch alongside family members of the crew, such as Perry’s daughter and partner Orlando Bloom.
Blue Origin's New Shepard rocket is designed for suborbital flights, offering passengers a brief but transformative experience of space. The company has been conducting commercial spaceflights since 2021, with this mission being its 31st overall and 11th crewed flight.