Lauren Sánchez and Katy Perry are set to go to space today. Here's who is joining them — and who designed their spacesuits.
Blue Origin's NS-31 rocket is due to take Lauren Sánchez, Katy Perry, and a crew of inspirational women on an 11 minute ride to space on Monday.
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Lester Cohen, Craig T Fruchtman/Getty Images; Blue Origin
- Lauren Sánchez's all-female space crew takes flight Monday on Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin rocket.
- Katy Perry, who is part of the crew, said she will give a performance on the trip.
- Here's what to know about the flight and crew of the New Shepard 31.
Lauren Sánchez, Katy Perry, and a crew of inspirational women are set to blast off on Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin rocket Monday.
The women will fly on board Blue Origin's NS-31, the 31st flight of the New Shepard rocket program, which will launch from its site in west Texas.
Here's what to know about the launch and the crew.
Blue Origin
The launch will be livestreamed on the Blue Origin website and social media accounts from 7 a.m. CT, 90 minutes before the scheduled launch time.
Once it takes off, the rocket will travel to space at up to three times the speed of sound.
Roughly 2 minutes and 40 seconds after launch, the crew capsule will separate from the rocket, allowing it to cruise 62 miles above Earth over the Kármán line — the internationally recognized boundary separating Earth's atmosphere from space.
Once they are past this line, the crew will be able to unbuckle and enjoy a few minutes of weightlessness before the capsule falls back to Earth.
The capsule will land using parachutes roughly 11 minutes after takeoff.
Kevin Mazur/WireImage
The NS-31 crew features: Sánchez, an Emmy-winning journalist and finance of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos; pop star Perry; Gayle King, the award-winning CBS News anchor; Amanda Nguyen, a bioastronautics research scientist and civil rights activist; Aisha Bowe, a former NASA rocket scientist; and Kerianne Flynn, a film producer.
Not only will Nguyen be the first Vietnamese woman in space, but this will be the first all-female space crew since 1963, when Valentina Tereshkova, a Russian engineer, crewed a solo flight.
Sánchez told Elle magazine she chose the other crew because they're all "storytellers in their own right. They're going to go up to space and be able to spread what they felt in different ways."
Sánchez asked Fernando Garcia and Laura Kim, the creative directors of luxury brand Oscar de la Renta and co-founders of their own brand Monse, to make fashionable spacesuits for the crew, she told The New York Times.
Garcia and Kim partnered with Creative Character Engineering, a Hollywood costume company, to create the Monse Blue Origin suits.
On Sunday, Perry posted an Instagram video showing the capsule, explaining that they dubbed their crew "The Taking Up Space Crew" and promising to sing during the flight.
Meanwhile, Nguyen said on Instagram she will conduct multiple experiments on women's health and plants during the brief flight.
Tony Gutierrez/Associated Press
Blue Origin, founded by Bezos, has been offering space tourism flights since 2021.
The company does not disclose the cost of a space flight, but the website says applicants must pay a $150,000 refundable deposit.
In 2021, Blue Origin auctioned a seat for its maiden flight for $28 million. Tim Chrisman, the cofounder of the Foundation for the Future, told the Observer in 2022 that a board member of the nonprofit paid $1 million for his seat.
Blue Origin's also attracted several celebrities, including William Shatner, the "Star Trek" star.
