The singer and songwriter Katy Perry and the broadcast journalist and show host Gayle King will be among the all-female crew on the next mission of New Shepard, the space tourism rocket that is operated by Jeff Bezos’ private company, Blue Origin.
Blue Origin announced the lineup on Thursday, ahead of a planned spaceflight this spring, though no specific date has been announced for the launch. It will also include Aisha Bowe, a former NASA engineer; Amanda Nguyen, a research scientist; Kerianne Flynn, a film producer; and Lauren Sánchez, who is Mr. Bezos’ fiancée and a helicopter pilot.
The company has garnered attention for its flights by including celebrities or highlighting new milestones in spaceflight.
The spring launch will be the 11th flight carrying passengers and the 31st mission overall for the New Shepard. The suborbital rocket is named after Alan Shepard, the first American to reach space in 1961 and one of the astronauts who walked on the moon.
Flights on the fully reusable vehicle last just over 10 minutes and take participants to an altitude higher than 62 miles. Astronauts aboard the International Space Station, by contrast, orbit about 250 miles above the Earth
Mr. Bezos, the founder of Amazon and one of the wealthiest men on the planet, was among the first passengers on New Shepard in 2021, the year of Blue Origin’s first crewed flight.
Others who have been part of a New Shepard crew include William Shatner, who played the role of Captain Kirk on Star Trek, in 2021; Edward Dwight, who at 90 years old reached space in 2024, more than 60 years after he was passed over as the first Black astronaut; and Michael Strahan, the “Good Morning America” co-host, who flew on a mission in 2021.
Here is the crew of the NS-31 mission:
Aisha Bowe is a former aerospace engineer at the NASA Ames Research Center and the chief executive officer of STEMBoard, an engineering firm that provides advisory services to U.S. government organizations. Of Bahamian heritage, Ms. Bowe “hopes her journey from community college to space will inspire young people in the Bahamas and around the world to pursue their dreams,” a Blue Origin statement said.
Amanda Nguyen is the founder of Rise, a nonprofit rights and advocacy group for survivors of sexual violence. For her work, she was nominated for the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize. She has conducted research in bioastronautics, which is the study of how to support life in space, at various institutions, including the Center for Astrophysics at Harvard and the Smithsonian and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She worked on the last NASA shuttle mission, STS-135, in 2011, and the Kepler exoplanet mission.
Gayle King is a journalist and co-host of “CBS Mornings,” as well as an editor at large of the website Oprah Daily (and she has long been known as a friend and work associate of Oprah Winfrey), and the host of a call-in show “Gayle King in the House” on SiriusXM radio. The Blue Origin statement said that Ms. King is “someone who is staying open to new adventures, even ones that scare her.”
Katy Perry is one of the biggest names in pop music as a singer and songwriter. She is also the founder of the Firework Foundation, which works to empower children in underserved communities through the arts. She was appointed a UNICEF goodwill ambassador in 2013.
Kerianne Flynn, a film producer for the films This Changes Everything (2018), which explores the history of women in Hollywood, and Lilly (2024), a tribute to Lilly Ledbetter, the fair-pay advocate. Ms. Flynn is on the board of trustees at the Allen-Stevenson School in New York City, and on the development committee of Hudson River Park.
Lauren Sánchez, a helicopter pilot, founded Black Ops Aviation in 2016, an aerial film and production company. She won an Emmy Award as part of a news television team. She serves as the vice chair of the Bezos Earth Fund, Mr. Bezos’ philanthropic effort. She is the author of a children’s book, “The Fly Who Flew to Space.” Ms. Sánchez, who is engaged to Mr. Bezos, “brought the mission together,” the Blue Origin statement said, referring to the New Shepherd crew.
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