Blue Origin, a space company founded by Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, is making history by sending an all-female crew on its next spaceflight. The American spacecraft company said its 11th human mission will include Bezos’ fiancé and former journalist Lauren Sánchez, CBS host Gayle King and pop singer Katy Perry. Also on-board the the NS-31 mission will be NASA rocket scientist Aisha Bowe, bioastronautics research scientist Amanda Nguyen and film producer Kerianne Flynn.
The mission is part of Blue Origin’s New Shepard program, which has flown 52 people above the Kármán line, the internationally recognized boundary of space about 62 miles above Earth. According to the Blue Origin website, the astronauts will ascend toward space at more than three times the speed of sound. Once they pass the line, the crew can unbuckle and float weightless, before returning to Earth.
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The flight, which will launch sometime this spring, will mark the first all-female flight crew since Russian engineer Valentina Tereshkova’s solo spaceflight in 1963.
Blue Origin has taken many notable names up above the Earth before, including actor William Shatner, Good Morning America host and retired NFL player Michael Strahan and Bezos himself.
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