Blue Origin rocket with all-female crew, including Katy Perry, set for launch –
A group of six women, including U.S. singer-songwriter Katy Perry, is set to blast off into the upper limits of Earth’s atmosphere today on a rocket from Blue Origin, the space company owned by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. The remaining crew includes TV presenter Gayle King, film producer Kerianne Flynn, former NASA aerospace engineer Aisha Bowe, and Amanda Nguyen, founder of a campaign group against sexual violence. The flight is scheduled to launch from western Texas at around 13:30 GMT. Today’s venture features the first all-woman space crew since Russian cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova’s historic solo flight in 1963.
The passengers will be carried more than 100 kilometers (60 miles) above the Earth’s surface, beyond the Karman line, the internationally recognized boundary of space during the flight, which is planned to last some 10 minutes. The fully automated craft will rise vertically before the crew capsule separates in mid-flight, then returns to the ground in a fall braked by parachutes and a retro rocket.
