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Space
Space
Science
Mike Wall

Blue Origin set to launch all-female spaceflight with Katy Perry on April 14

Blue Origin will launch an all-female spaceflight with Katy Perry on Monday morning (April 14), and you can watch the historic action live.

Perry and her crewmates — Aisha Bowe, Amanda Nguyễn, Gayle King, Kerianne Flynn and Lauren Sánchez (who's the partner of Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos) — are set to launch to suborbital space aboard Blue Origin's New Shepard vehicle from the company's West Texas site on Monday.

The launch window opens at 9:30 a.m. EDT (1330 GMT; 8:30 a.m. local Texas time). You can watch it live here at Space.com, courtesy of Blue Origin, or directly via the company. Coverage will begin 90 minutes before liftoff.

The NS-31 crew. (Image credit: Blue Origin)

Monday's mission is known as NS-31, because it will be the 31st flight to date for New Shepard, a reusable rocket-capsule combo. This will be the 11th crewed flight for New Shepard; the other missions have been uncrewed research jaunts.

Related: What time is Blue Origin's New Shepard launch with Katy Perry and Gayle King on April 14?

NS-31 will also be the first all-female spaceflight since June 16, 1963, when the Soviet Union's Valentina Tereshkova launched on a three-day solo trip to Earth orbit.

Perry and her colleagues won't be gone for nearly that long; New Shepard missions last just 10 to 12 minutes from liftoff to capsule touchdown. But the NS-31 crew will get above the Kármán Line, the internationally recognized boundary of outer space, which lies 62 miles (100 kilometers) above Earth. They'll also get to experience a few minutes of weightlessness and see our planet against the blackness of space.

We don't know how much this experience costs; Blue Origin has not published its ticket prices. But its main competitor in the suborbital space tourism business, Virgin Galactic, currently charges $650,000 per seat.

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