Blue Origin and USA TODAY will provide a livestream for the roughly 11-minute spaceflight.
Gayle King, Katy Perry head to space in historic flight
Blue Origin’s “New Shepard” space vehicle will historically carry an all-female crew, including Katy Perry and Gayle King, to space.
The next group of celebrity space tourists are days away from blasting off above Earth’s atmosphere on a Blue Origin rocket to witness a view only a few other civilians have ever seen.
The all-women crew includes pop artist Katy Perry and journalist Gayle King, who co-hosts “CBS Mornings.” If Blue Origin’s spacecraft gets off the ground as planned Monday morning, Perry, King and four other women will experience a few minutes of weightlessness while gazing upon Earth from the edge of space.
The vehicle they’ll ride to orbit, Blue Origin’s New Shepard, is the same one that 48 others have rode to space on 10 previous human spaceflights from the company’s west Texas facility. The New Shepard’s maiden voyage in July 2021 with a crew even included billionaire Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, who also owns the space technology company.
New Shepard is composed of both a rocket and a crew capsule, which is outfitted with large windows for its passengers to gaze out of during the roughly 11-minute spaceflight.
But for the rest of us, we’ll have to content ourselves with watching the launch on solid ground. Fortunately, Blue Origin will provide a livestream for a launch and spaceflight that is sure to grab plenty of headlines.
Here’s what to know:
When is the Blue Origin launch from Texas?
New Shepard’s launch window opens at 9:30 a.m. ET Monday, according to Blue Origin.
Like all of Blue Origin launches, the vehicle will lift off at Launch Site One, a private ranch in rural West Texas more than 140 miles east of El Paso.
How to watch Gayle King, Katy Perry go on all-female spaceflight
Blue Origin will provide a livestream of the takeoff beginning prior to the launch window opening on its website.
The company has yet to share any specific webcast details, but a YouTube simulcast is scheduled to go live on launch day. Blue Origin will also be covering the launch live on X starting at 8 a.m. ET.
CBS will also provide coverage of the launch on its network and through its streaming service Paramount+. Coverage begins at 7 a.m. EDT during “CBS Mornings” and continues at 9 a.m. with a special segment, “Gayle goes to Space.”
A livestream of the launch will also be available to watch via USA TODAY.
Who are the celebrities heading to space on Blue Origin’s New Shepard?
Six women were selected to be part of the next Blue Origin commercial spaceflight, a mission known as NS-31.
Here’s a look:
- Aisha Bowe, a former NASA rocket scientist, CEO of engineering firm STEMBoard and founder of LINGO, which teaches students technology skills.
- Amanda Nguyen, a prominent civil rights activist and bioastronautics research scientist who worked on the last NASA space shuttle mission, STS-135, and the U.S. space agency’s exoplanet-hunting Kepler space telescope.
- Gayle King, a journalist and television personality best known as a co-host of “CBS Mornings.”
- Katy Perry, a pop music artist and former host of “American Idol.”
- Kerianne Flynn, a film producer known for her contributions to “This Changes Everything,” a 2018 documentary about sexism in Hollywood.
- Lauren Sánchez, an Emmy Award-winning journalist who is the fiancée of Bezos.
Eric Lagatta covers breaking and trending news for USA TODAY. Reach him at [email protected]
This story was updated to add new information.
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