All-female Blue Origin crew travel to the edge of space

Katy Perry and five other women launched into space on a Blue Origin rocket and successfully returned to Earth yesterday, marking the first all-female space flight in more than 60 years.

- ANDREW GRIFFIN RHIAN LUBIN

Jeff Bezos’s partner Lauren Sanchez was also on board, along with CBS Mornings presenter Gayle King, former Nasa rocket scientist Aisha Bowe, civil rights activist Amanda Nguyen, and movie producer Kerianne Flynn.

As celebrities such as Khloe Kardashian and Oprah Winfrey looked on from an observation deck at the launch site in west Texas, the crew of six blasted off from Blue Origin’s launchpad at 9.31am ET (1.31pm GMT).

The crew travelled to the edge of space, more than 100km above Earth, where they experienced a brief period of zero gravity before returning in a flight lasting around 11 minutes, according to a live broadcast by Blue Origin.

The space flight was a high-profile success for Bezos’s New Shepard launch vehicle, which has been developed for space tourism.

“I don’t think I realised how emotional it was going to be,” Kardashian said.