In April 2021, NASA awarded Elon Musk's company a $2.9 billion contract to provide the first crewed lunar lander for the agency's Artemis program. That vehicle, a modified upper stage of SpaceX's Starship megarocket, is supposed to land astronauts on the moon for the first time on the upcoming Artemis 3 mission.

But NASA isn't satisfied with the pace of Starship's development and is therefore shaking things up, acting agency chief Sean Duffy announced on Monday (Oct. 20).

"I love SpaceX; it's an amazing company. The problem is, they're behind. They've pushed their timelines out, and we're in a race against China," Duffy said on Monday morning, during an appearance on CNBC's "Squawk Box."

"The president and I want to get to the moon in this president's term, so I'm gonna open up the contract," he added. "I'm gonna let other space companies compete with SpaceX, like Blue Origin."

Blue Origin, which was founded by Amazon's Jeff Bezos, won an Artemis Human Landing System contract of its own in 2023, an award worth $3.4 billion. The company plans to fulfill that deal with its Blue Moon lander, which was originally expected to make its crewed lunar debut on the Artemis 5 mission.

Musk voiced skepticism that Blue Origin could speed up its timeline enough to be ready for a crewed moon mission before SpaceX.

"Blue Origin has never delivered a payload to orbit, let alone the moon," the world's richest person said via X on Monday, qualifying that to "useful payload" in a follow-up post. (Blue Origin's huge New Glenn rocket carried a prototype of the company's Blue Ring spacecraft to Earth orbit on its first — and so far, only — launch this past January.)

Artemis 3's timeline has shifted to the right several times over the past few years, and not just because Starship is still in the testing phase; issues with spacesuits, NASA's Orion capsule and other tech have also played a role. (Orion will carry Artemis astronauts to lunar orbit, where they'll meet up with the lander that will deliver them to the surface.)

The launch date was originally targeted for late 2024 but was pushed back to 2025, September 2026 and then mid-2027.

And NASA is now apparently eyeing an even later timeline: In Monday's "Squawk Box" interview, Duffy suggests that 2028 is the target for Artemis 3.

The Artemis program has one launch under its belt — that of Artemis 1, which successfully sent an uncrewed Orion to and from lunar orbit in late 2022.

NASA is now gearing up for Artemis 2, which will launch four people on a 10-day journey around the moon next year. That mission remains on track to launch as early as February, Duffy said on Monday.

SpaceX's Starship, meanwhile, has launched on 11 suborbital test flights to date. The most recent two liftoffs, which took place on Aug. 26 and Oct. 13, respectively, were fully successful.

As Duffy noted, China has moon plans of its own: The nation plans to land astronauts on Earth's nearest neighbor by 2030 and is making serious progress toward achieving that goal. No humans have touched the lunar surface since NASA's Apollo 17 astronauts did so in December 1972.

Blue Origin's second New Glenn rocket just made a big move.

Jeff Bezos' company rolled a New Glenn first stage out to the launch pad at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida on Wednesday (Oct. 8) to help prep the vehicle for its upcoming liftoff.

That launch, which is expected to take place late this month or in November, will send NASA's twin ESCAPADE probes to Mars.

New Glenn stands about 320 feet tall (98 meters) when fully stacked. Like SpaceX's Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets, the Blue Origin launcher features a reusable first stage.

New Glenn debuted this past January on a test flight that reached orbit as planned. Blue Origin tried to land the first stage on a ship at sea after liftoff that day but came up short.

Mission number two is an operational flight: It will send the two ESCAPADE ("Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers") orbiters rocketing toward the Red Planet, where they will study the Martian atmosphere and how it is affected by the solar wind and space weather.

Those two probes — which are named Blue and Gold, and were built by the California-based company Rocket Lab — arrived on Florida's Space Coast on Sept. 22.

Wednesday was a big day for Blue Origin. That same morning, the company sent six people to and from suborbital space on its New Shepard vehicle.

The mission, which launched from Blue Origin's West Texas site, was the company's 15th human spaceflight and the 36th overall launch of the New Shepard system.

Blue Origin launched its 15th space tourism flight today (Oct. 8), sending six people on a brief trip to the final frontier, including a mystery passenger who only revealed his identity after the flight.

The company's New Shepard vehicle lifted off from Blue Origin's West Texas launch site today at 9:40 a.m. EDT (1340 GMT; 8:40 a.m. local Texas time), kicking off a suborbital flight known as NS-36.

Everything went according to plan for Blue Origin. New Shepard's first stage came back to Earth for a vertical, powered landing about 8 minutes after launch, and the autonomous vehicle's capsule followed suit several minutes later, touching down under parachutes in the Texas desert.

Flying on that capsule were franchise-industry executive Jeff Elgin, media entrepreneur Danna Karagussova, electrical engineer Clint Kelly III, software entrepreneur and author Aaron Newman, and Ukrainian businessman and investor Vitalii Ostrovsky.

"Oh my God, oh my God!" Karagussova could be heard exclaiming as they reached space. She and her crewmates had dubbed themselves the "Space Nomads" for the flight, as each Blue Origin crew picks its own nickname, the company said.

There was also a sixth mystery passenger, who wanted to remain anonymous until after the flight.

That mystery space tourist was Will Lewis, CEO and chair of the medical biotech company Insmed. "He is an experienced adventurer and considers NS-36 to be the fulfillment of a lifelong dream," Blue Origin spokesperson Tabitha Lipkin said during live commentary.

NS-36 was the second spaceflight for Kelly, who performed pioneering robotics and computer-science research in the 1980s at the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). He also went to space on Blue Origin's NS-22 mission in August 2022.

You can read more about each NS-36 passenger in our crew reveal story.

Blue Origin, which was founded by Amazon's Jeff Bezos, has been flying New Shepard for a decade now.

As its name suggests, today's flight was the 36th overall for the reusable vehicle. It was just the 15th to carry people, however; most New Shepard jaunts have been uncrewed research flights.

New Shepard gets more than 62 miles (100 kilometers) above Earth — higher than the Kármán line, the widely recognized boundary of outer space. Passengers experience a few minutes of weightlessness and get to see Earth against the blackness of space.

Blue Origin said the NS-36 space tourists reached a maximum altitude of about 66 miles (107 kilometers), just above the Kármán line during their flight. From liftoff to landing, the entire mission lasted 10 minutes and 21 seconds.

Blue Origin has not revealed its New Shepard ticket prices. But, for some perspective: The company's biggest competitor in the suborbital tourism business, Virgin Galactic, charged $600,000 per seat for its most recent flights.

UPDATE: Blue Origin is now targeting 9:40 am ET (1340 GMT) for the launch of six passengers on its NS-36 space tourist flight.

Blue Origin plans to launch its 15th space tourism mission on today (Oct. 8), and you can watch the action live.

Blue Origin, which was founded by Amazon's Jeff Bezos, is targeting a window that opens at 9:30 a.m. EDT (1330 GMT) on Wednesday morning for the latest flight of its New Shepard suborbital vehicle.

You can watch the liftoff — which will take place from Blue Origin's West Texas launch site — live here at Space.com, courtesy of the company. Coverage will begin 30 minutes before liftoff.

Blue Origin calls today's mission NS-36, because it will be the 36th overall flight of New Shepard, an autonomous, reusable rocket-capsule combo. Twenty-one of New Shepard's missions to date have been uncrewed research flights; this will be the 15th to carry people.

Six people will go up on NS-36. They are franchise-industry executive Jeff Elgin, media entrepreneur Danna Karagussova, electrical engineer and robotics researcher Clint Kelly III, software entrepreneur Aaron Newman, Ukrainian businessman Vitalii Ostrovsky, and a sixth passenger who wishes to remain anonymous until after the flight.

Kelly is a spaceflight veteran; he also flew on Blue Origin's NS-22 mission in August 2022.

You can read more about each of these passengers in our NS-36 crew reveal story.

New Shepard flights last 10 to 12 minutes from launch until capsule touchdown. Passengers get to experience a few minutes of weightlessness during this time, and they get above the Kármán line — the widely recognized boundary of outer space, which lies 62 miles (100 kilometers) above Earth.

It's unclear how much a seat aboard New Shepard costs; Blue Origin has not revealed its ticket prices.

New Shepard has carried some famous people to and from the final frontier over the past few years. Passengers on previous flights include "Star Trek" icon William Shatner, NFL Hall of Famer Michael Strahan and pop superstar Katy Perry.

On Wednesday (Oct. 1), Blue Origin, which was founded by Amazon's Jeff Bezos, announced the passenger list for NS-36, the next flight of its New Shepard suborbital vehicle. (We don't yet know when NS-36 will launch; that info is coming soon, according to Blue Origin.)

The company gave us five names for NS-36. There will also be a sixth, but that person "asked to remain anonymous until after the flight," Blue Origin wrote in an update on Wednesday. Here's a brief rundown of the announced five, using information provided in the update.

• Jeff Elgin, founder of FranChoice, a network that helps match people with franchise-owning opportunities.
• Danna Karagussova, founder of Portals, "a multimodal ecosystem that features digital self-regulation tools that fuse art and science," according to Blue Origin. She's also a lifelong mountaineer.
• Dr. Clint Kelly III, an electrical engineer with a long history in computer and robotics research. His work at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) in the 1980s helped lay the foundation for driverless cars, Blue Origin wrote. He's also a wildlife photographer who wrote a book about penguins. Kelly has already flown with Blue Origin, reaching space on the NS-22 mission in August 2022.
• Aaron Newman, an entrepreneur who founded five software startups. Newman is also a veteran of the U.S. Army and an explorer, having descended into the Mariana Trench, the deepest spot in the world's oceans.
• Vitalii Ostrovsky, a Ukrainian businessman, investor and globetrotter who has lived in more than 100 countries around the world.

As its name suggests, NS-36 will be the 36th spaceflight for New Shepard, which consists of a reusable booster and a reusable capsule. It will be just the 15th New Shepard tourist flight, however; most of the vehicle's missions have been uncrewed research flights.

New Shepard flights — crewed or uncrewed — last 10 to 12 minutes from liftoff to the parachute-aided touchdown of the capsule. Passengers get to experience a few minutes of weightlessness and see Earth against the blackness of space. It's unclear how much this costs; Blue Origin has not revealed its ticket prices.

Blue Origin had originally targeted no earlier than Sept. 29 for the second New Glenn launch, designated NG-2, but now says the mission is slated for NET mid-October. The rocket's ESCAPADE payload is awaiting vehicle integration at Blue Origin's Astrotech Space Operations Facility in Titusville, Florida, while New Glenn's first stage (GS1) booster is prepped for an engine test at Launch Complex-36 (LC-36).

"ESCAPADE is at Astrotech and GS1 is headed to LC-36 in early October. Next up is the vehicle hotfire mid-month with launch soon thereafter," Blue Origin wrote in a post on social media.

NASA's ESCAPADE (Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers) probes have been patiently waiting their turn for a ride to space for more than a year. The pair was slated to launch as a part of New Glenn's debut mission, but NASA ended up deciding not to risk its next flight to Mars on an unproven rocket.

The twin satellites were built by California-based Rocket Lab, and will be operated by the University of California's Space Sciences Laboratory once they reach orbit.

Satisfied with Blue Origin's results from New Glenn's first liftoff, ESCAPADE was added back to the manifest and assigned as the rocket's second mission.

It's a high profile project for New Glenn, and is indicative of the level of confidence NASA has in the launch vehicle. The $80 million ESCAPADE mission will be New Glenn's first interplanetary launch and is headed to Mars orbit. There, the probes will study the planet's magnetosphere and analyze how energetic solar wind particles interact with the Martian atmosphere.

New Glenn's first launch successfully delivered a test version of Blue Origin's Blue Ring satellite bus to Earth orbit, but failed to recover the rocket's nearly 189-foot-tall (58-meter-tall) first stage booster during its landing attempt on a barge in the Atlantic Ocean. Blue Origin plans to attempt a recovery the GS1 booster as part of the upcoming launch as well.

NG-2 will also carry a secondary payload. Satellite communications company Viasat is flying a technology demonstration as a part of NASA's Communications Services Project, which partners with the commercial sector to evolve networking technologies for near-Earth satellites.

Launch and space systems company Rocket Lab delivered the twin ESCAPADE ("Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers") spacecraft to NASA's Kennedy Space Center on Monday (Sept. 22).

The twin probes, named Blue and Gold, are designed to study Mars' atmosphere. The spacecraft will now be inspected and tested ahead of integration with the 322-foot-tall (98 meters) New Glenn rocket in preparation for launch, which is scheduled to occur no earlier than this fall.

The $80 million mission is part of NASA's Small Innovative Missions for Planetary Exploration (SIMPLEx) program, which targets high-value science while operating on tighter budgets and shorter timelines.

Blue and Gold will enter elliptical orbits around Mars to study how the planet interacts with the solar wind and also how the planet's atmosphere is stripped away by solar wind and space weather effects. They carry magnetometers, to measure magnetic fields, electrostatic analyzers to detect ions and electrons, and Langmuir probes for measuring key parameters of plasma.

California-based Rocket Lab designed and developed the spacecraft over a 3.5-year period, based on the company's interplanetary Explorer spacecraft platform.

"Delivering two interplanetary spacecraft on schedule and within budget for a Mars mission is no small feat, and it speaks to the determination and agility of our team. They've proven that we can take a concept from design to Mars readiness in just a few short years," Rocket Lab founder and CEO Peter Beck said in a statement.

The mission will be the second flight of the powerful New Glenn rocket, which reached orbit on its debut flight in January of this year. Notably, this mission is taking place outside of the traditional Hohmann transfer windows for Mars, which open for a few weeks every 26 months and are the most energy-efficient times for launch. Instead, New Glenn will send the ESCAPADE probes on a longer, 22-month cruise phase to Mars, meaning they are scheduled to arrive at the Red Planet in the second half of 2027.

Launch will take place at New Glenn's pad at Space Launch Complex-36, located at Cape Canaveral Space Force Base in Florida. The University of California's Space Sciences Laboratory will take over management of the mission for NASA once the ESCAPADE probes are in space.

The NASA moon robot, whose name is short for "Volatiles Investigating Polar Explorer Rover," will hitch a ride to the lunar surface with Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin in late 2027, agency officials announced this afternoon.

"NASA is leading the world in exploring more of the moon than ever before, and this delivery is just one of many ways we’re leveraging U.S. industry to support a long-term American presence on the lunar surface," acting NASA Administrator Sean Duffy said in a statement today.

The VIPER mission took shape as an envisioned key piece of NASA's Artemis program, which seeks to establish a long-term, sustainable human presence on and around the moon by 2030 or so.

That presence will be centered on the moon's south polar region, which is thought to harbor lots of water ice. VIPER was designed to vet the abundance and accessibility of this important resource, which can be used for life support as well as be split it into its constituent hydrogen and oxygen atoms to make rocket fuel.

VIPER was originally supposed to land on the moon in late 2023 aboard Griffin, a lander built by Pittsburgh-based company Astrobotic; Astrobotic signed a contract to this effect with NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program.

But delays with both Griffin and VIPER pushed the target date back multiple times. Then, in July 2024, NASA announced it was canceling the over-budget mission, even though the car-sized rover was already fully assembled. Doing so would save about $84 million, according to the agency, which had spent roughly $450 million on the mission to that point.

NASA also said it planned to solicit offers from private companies, to see if any wanted to team up to get VIPER to the moon (and take on some of the cost). If that didn't work out, the agency said engineers would take VIPER apart and put its key instruments on other moon robots going forward.

This past May, however, NASA announced it was putting the brakes on that industry partnership search, saying that it would "announce a new strategy for VIPER in the future."

We learned that new strategy today: It's a new CLPS deal with Blue Origin,with a total potential value of $190 million. The company will fulfill this goal using its robotic Blue Moon Mark 1 lander, which is slated to debut later this year on another NASA CLPS mission to the lunar south pole.

"NASA is committed to studying and exploring the moon, including learning more about water on the lunar surface, to help determine how we can harness local resources for future human exploration," Nicky Fox, associate administrator, Science Mission Directorate, NASA Headquarters in Washington, said in today's statement.

"We've been looking for creative, cost-effective approaches to accomplish these exploration goals," she added. "This private sector-developed landing capability enables this delivery and focuses our investments accordingly — supporting American leadership in space and ensuring our long-term exploration is robust and affordable."

If all goes according to plan, VIPER will touch down near the moon's south pole and hunt for water ice in the area for about 100 Earth days. NASA will be in charge of these science operations; Blue Origin is responsible for the landing mission architecture, integration of VIPER into Blue Moon and deployment of the rover onto the lunar surface. The CLPS contract does not cover the mission's launch.

Blue Origin launched its 35th New Shepard suborbital mission this morning (Sept. 18) after a nearly four-week delay.

The uncrewed flight, known as NS-35, lifted off today from Blue Origin's West Texas site at 9:01 a.m. EDT (1301 GMT; 8:01 a.m. local Texas time).

Instead of a crew, the Blue Origin capsule carried more than 40 scientific payloads on its suborbital flight, including 24 payloads from the NASA TechRise Student Challenge, which empowers teams of 6th-12th graders to design, build and launch experiments on NASA supported test flights.

New Shepard consists of a first-stage rocket and a capsule, both of which are reusable. Flights of the vehicle get above the Kármán Line — the widely recognized boundary where space begins, at 62 miles up (100 kilometers) — and last 10 to 12 minutes from liftoff to capsule touchdown.

After a successful launch, the New Shepard booster descended for a safe landing 2 miles downrange of the launch pad about 7.5 minutes after liftoff. The capsule descended under parachutes for a touchdown at T+10:15.

NS-35 was originally supposed to fly on Aug. 23, but Blue Origin stood down from that attempt to work an issue with the booster's avionics. The company tried again on Aug. 26 but scrubbed for the same reason. Today's attempt will be the first since then.

More than 40 scientific payloads will take flight on NS-35, bringing the total number of payloads lofted by New Shepard to date over 200, according to the company.

"The payload manifest includes 24 experiments from NASA's TechRise Student Challenge, along with thousands of postcards on behalf of Club for the Future, Blue Origin's STEAM-focused nonprofit," Blue Origin wrote in an NS-35 mission description. (STEAM stands for "science, technology, engineering, art and mathematics.")

New Shepard also conducts crewed flights; indeed, 14 of its 34 missions to date have carried people to the final frontier.

The most recent such jaunt, NS-34, launched crypto billionaire Justin Sun and five other people from West Texas on Aug. 3. Blue Origin has also flown a number of celebrities, including singer Katy Perry and "Star Trek" actor William Shatner.

Blue Origin, which launches brief suborbital missions for astronauts and cargo using its New Shepard rocket and is expanding into deep space launches with its New Glenn rocket, is one of the contractors selected. The other is Anduril Industries, which builds autonomous systems such as uncrewed aerial vehicles (UAVs, or drones) as a defense-technology contractor for the U.S. Department of Defense.

Blue Origin received $1.3 million and Anduril $1 million in August under an Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) program, manager Daniel Brown told SpaceNews in a statement published Sunday (Sept. 7). The program is called Rocket Experimentation for Global Agile Logistics (REGAL), and news about the awards first broke in late August in outlets such as TechCrunch.

Brown added Blue's award would examine how to alter its space vehicles for point-to-point transport. Blue did not comment on the award on X, but posted on Aug. 6 about a visit by Maj. Gen. Stephen G. Purdy. Purdy has numerous positions in the Air Force, including acting assistant secretary and service acquisition executive for space.

Anduril's award, Brown said, will be for "design and analysis to integrate multiple potential government payloads into a rocket cargo delivery container, or re-entry system." Anduril also did not post about REGAL, but an August press release from the company highlighted its ability to build solid rocket motors.

REGAL aims to use rockets as point-to-point space transportation for the newly renamed Department of Defense (DoD), now called the Department of War.

The program will be to "deliver DoD cargo anywhere on the planet in less than one hour through service-type contracts, similar to agreements DoD uses today with commercial airlines," a procurement description published in 2021 states. Some of the expected uses include "emergency resupply to restore loss of mission capability, humanitarian relief [and] disaster relief," the description adds.

AFRL chose to undertake the program after key changes in American private launch services in recent decades, contracting opportunity documents state: "The U.S. commercial market is building the largest rockets ever, at the lowest prices per pound ever, and with second stages able [to] reenter the atmosphere and be recovered for multiple uses. These advances in the U.S. commercial launch market fueled a new assessment of point-to-point space transportation for DoD logistics."

The REGAL award is a first for Blue Origin and Anduril, SpaceNews reported, although space companies have received similar ones before: Sierra Space received an award in October 2024, and Rocket Lab in May 2025. Blue Origin also signed a 2021 cooperative agreement with U.S. Transportation Command concerning "rocket-powered logistics," SpaceNews added.

Other point-to-point shipment contracts are being studied by the military. For example, Sierra — developing an uncrewed Dream Chaser spacecraft for International Space Station cargo missions — also signed an agreement with DoD transportation command in 2022.

Blue Origin, founded by Amazon founder and billionaire Jeff Bezos, has completed 34 crewed or uncrewed missions to space. The 35th launch, a transportation effort, was postponed several times in August — most recently due to an avionics issue.

Blue Origin, the private spaceflight company founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos, will attempt to launch an uncrewed rocket on a science mission at date still yet to be determined. When it happens, you'll be able to watch it live online.

The company's reusable New Shepard rocket will launch a set of experiments into suborbital space from Blue Origin's Launch Site One in West Texas. The company stood down from an initial attempt on Saturday (Aug. 23), which was thwarted by a technical issue. "The team encountered an issue related to the booster's avionics," Blue Origin officials announced on social media at the time. A second attempt on Aug. 26 was also canceled due to the same issue, the company wrote on a mission description.

The Blue Origin launch, called NS-35, will send the company's 200th payload above the Kármán line on this uncrewed suborbital flight, which will include experiments and research designed by students, teachers and university teams. When ready, the NS-35 flight, will lift off from Blue Origin's Launch Site One in West Texas. A live webcast of the entire 10-minute spaceflight is planned to start 15 minutes before the launch. You can watch it live on BlueOrigin.com; Space.com will simulcast the stream, if Blue Origin makes it available.

"RSS H.G. Wells," Blue Origin's first New Shepard capsule devoted to carrying only payloads (rather than people), will fly the NS-35 mission. Both the cabin and its booster are planned to be recovered, with the latter making a propulsive landing on a concrete pad near its launch site and the former descending back to Earth under parachutes.

Among the NS-35 payloads are two dozen experiments that were chosen as part of NASA and Future Engineers' TechRise Student Challenge, including studies into cultivating plants in microgravity, the physics of liquids and medical research.

Other investigations on NS-35 were designed by educators as part of the Teachers in Space program. Their payloads will collect data on sound levels generated during the flight, radiation levels and the environmental conditions aboard the capsule.

Additional experiments on board are flying for the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, Oklahoma State University, the University of Florida, University of Central Florida, Teledyne and Space Lab Technologies.

Carthage College in Wisconsin will test new methods for gauging propellant levels in space, while a Teledyne payload, developed with NASA's Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, will test the a spacecraft fuel cell system before its possible use on moon and Mars missions.

A clutch of 432 sensors will record the effects of being coated with a new type of chemical coating, and a modified FLEX fluorescence imaging system previously tested aboard the International Space Station will make its first suborbital journey on NS-35.

As on all of Blue Origin's New Shepard flights, crewed or uncrewed, the company is also carrying postcards on behalf of its not-for-profit organization, "Club For the Future." The cards will be stamped after the flight as having reached space and then returned to the students and others who decorated their fronts.

NS-35 will be Blue Origin's 5th flight by the H.G. Wells capsule and 21st uncrewed New Shepard mission.

Editor's note: This article, originally posted on Aug. 22, was updated on Aug. 25 and again on Aug. 26 to reflect delays to Blue Origin's NS-35 New Shepard mission.

The company says it has been working closely with NASA on preparations leading up to New Glenn's next launch, dubbed NG-2, and is targeting no earlier than (NET) Sep. 29. The twin ESCAPADE (Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers) probes have been awaiting their turn aboard New Glenn, which was originally slated to carry the satellites on its maiden launch in January. However, NASA opted not to risk a costly mission delay due to the debut liftoff of the new rocket.

Now that the mission has been assigned a NET date, Blue Origin posted on social media to expect "some exciting things" buzzing around New Glenn's pad at Space Launch Complex-36, located at Cape Canaveral Space Force Base in Florida.

New Glenn lifted off for the first time in the beginning of 2025. Blue Origin successfully launched a test version of its Blue Ring satellite bus to Earth orbit, but failed in the attempt to land New Glenn's first stage at sea. In addition to launching its NASA payload into an interplanetary trajectory, Blue Origin will once again try to land and recover New Glenn's 188.5-foot-tall (57.5-meter-tall) first stage booster on a drone ship in the Atlantic Ocean.

ESCAPADE will be New Glenn's first interplanetary mission, an ambitious undertaking for the relatively new launch vehicle. The twin orbiters will study the magnetosphere around the Red Planet as well as analyze the processes that control the interaction of energetic solar wind particles and the Martian atmosphere.

The twin NASA satellites were built by California-based Rocket Lab. Once in space, their operation will be handed over to the University of California's Space Sciences Laboratory, tasked with managing the $80 million mission for the space agency.

New Glenn will also carry a secondary payload as a part of the NG-2 launch. A technology demonstration from satellite communications company Viasat will be flown as well in support of NASA's Communications Services Project, which partners with the commercial sector to advance developments concerning in-space networking for near-Earth satellites.

The agency recently awarded a total of $1.4 million to the group, which includes companies like Blue Origin, United Launch Alliance and Rocket Lab. The goal is to eventually send various sizes and types of spacecraft to a variety of destinations in the final frontier, using orbital transfer vehicles.

Orbital transfer vehicles launch atop rockets, carrying other spacecraft that they deliver to specific, often hard-to-reach, orbits. The new early-stage studies for NASA should be complete by mid-September.

NASA will use the work to potentially bring "risk-tolerant payloads" to space, the agency stated on Tuesday (Aug. 5), "with a possibility of expanding delivery services to larger-sized payloads and to less risk-tolerant missions in the future." The agency also has a long-term goal to send more missions to the moon and Mars in a cost-efficient way.

Spacecraft have limited fuel on board, often making it difficult for them to change orbits on their own. Rockets also have difficulty in carrying spacecraft far afield, as most of their fuel is burned on liftoff alone. Hence the utility of an orbital transfer vehicle, which is designed to take a satellite, or a series of satellites, away from the rocket and to another orbit.

NASA officials stated that a multi-orbit approach is needed as the pace of commercial space delivery increases, especially when several spacecraft or orbits are required for a single mission.

The new awards "will increase unique science capability and lower the agency's overall mission costs," Joe Dant, orbital transfer vehicle strategic initiative owner for the launch services program at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, said in the same statement.

The six companies are collectively working on nine early-stage studies for orbital transfer vehicles. Here's a quick rundown:

• Awardee Arrow Science and Technology will partner with a non-awardee, Quantum Space. The study will examine Quantum's Ranger for payload delivery "for missions from low Earth orbit to lunar orbit," NASA stated.
• Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin will conduct two studies. The first is designed for the Blue Ring platform, which can use hybrid solar-electric and chemical propulsion for orbits ranging from geostationary to cislunar (near-moon) to Mars to interplanetary locations. The second study will examine an upper stage for New Glenn, Blue's heavy-lift orbital rocket.
• Firefly Aerospace will study use of its Elytra orbital vehicles for transfer to lunar orbit operations, or applications in cislunar space such as imaging, payload delivery or domain awareness.
• Impulse Space will perform two studies. These will involve two vehicles, called Mira and Helios. Mira is described as a "highly maneuverable spacecraft" for payload hosting and deployment, and Helios is a kick stage able to move from low Earth orbit to medium Earth orbit, geostationary orbit or further destinations.
• Rocket Lab will conduct two studies — one for its powerful new Neutron rocket, and one for an orbital transfer vehicle based on its Explorer spacecraft. These vehicles can collectively reach orbits including medium Earth orbit and geosynchronous orbit, or faraway destinations such as the moon, Mars or asteroids.
• United Launch Alliance will perform a study on its Centaur V upper stage, with the aim of creating rideshare missions to cislunar space. Centaur V is used both on the retiring Atlas V rocket line, as well as the newer Vulcan Centaur rockets.

Blue Origin wants to support NASA's Mars plans during the 2028 planetary alignment launch window.

The company has announced plans for a Mars Telecommunications Orbiter (MTO), a new spacecraft designed to establish a multi-relay hub for continuous communications between Earth and Mars.

The MTO, which Blue Origin says could lift off by 2028, is designed to deliver much higher bandwidth to Red Planet spacecraft. It could aid robotic missions on the Martian surface and in orbit, as well as future human exploration of the Red Planet, according to the company.

NASA's long-term Mars plans — including sample return and eventual crewed missions — will require robust relay infrastructure to maintain pace with the agency's aging Martian fleet.

Currently, most data from Mars is communicated through orbiters such as NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), MAVEN (Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution) and the European Space Agency's (ESA) Trace Gas Orbiter. When these spacecraft are eventually powered down, whether due to hardware degradation, mission reprioritization, or budgetary decisions, Mars assets will be left without a reliable communications network. MTO is pitched as a potential commercial option to fill that gap.

MTO will operate several "steerable high-rate links supported by a broad beam that offers wide-area coverage," Blue Origin said in a statement. The spacecraft will also augment its abilities through deployable ultrahigh frequency (UHF) relay satellites in low Mars orbit for "legacy assets and future entry, descent and landing demonstrations," the company added.

The spacecraft is built on Blue Origin's Blue Ring modular satellite bus — an advanced orbiter with independent processing, storage and A.I. capabilities, and the ability to support over a dozen payloads across multiple ports. MTO will operate using a hybrid thruster system, harnessing electric and chemical propulsion to expand its maneuvering capabilities and mission longevity, according to Blue Origin.

"Our orbiter's hybrid propulsion, maneuvering capability, and capacity greatly expand the windows to get to the Red Planet," Blue Origin said in a post on X.

The orbiter's design also incorporates technologies from the company's Mars Next-Generation Relay concept and Mars Sample Return (MSR) proposals for commercial options for NASA's communication infrastructure.

MSR is the agency's plan to haul home to Earth material gathered on the Red Planet by the Perseverance rover. NASA has been aiming to launch key MSR hardware in 2028, but that plan is in serious doubt due to delays and budget concerns. (Mars and Earth align for interplanetary launches just once every 26 months. The next two such windows come in 2026 and 2028).

NASA has not announced a contract award for MTO, and the spacecraft remains a proposal within Blue Origin's portfolio of planetary mission spacecraft concepts.

Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin launched a crypto billionaire and five other people to the final frontier on Sunday (Aug. 3).

The mission — known as NS-34, because it was the 34th overall flight of Blue Origin's New Shepard vehicle — lifted off from the company's West Texas spaceport at 8:43 a.m. EDT (1243 GMT; 7:43 a.m. local time in West Texas).

The highest-profile NS-34 passenger was Justin Sun, a 34-year-old billionaire who founded the blockchain platform Tron. In June 2021, Sun won an auction for a seat aboard the first-ever crewed flight of New Shepard, plunking down $28 million. (He did so anonymously; we didn't learn that Sun posted the winning bid until December 2021.)

A scheduling conflict kept Sun from joining that landmark flight, which took place on July 20, 2021 — the 52nd anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing. The passengers that day were Jeff Bezos, his brother Mark, aviation pioneer Wally Funk and Dutch student Oliver Daemen.

The people flying with Sun on Sunday were Arvinder (Arvi) Singh Bahal, an Indian-born American real estate investor and adventurer; Turkish businessman and photographer Gökhan Erdem; Deborah Martorell, a journalist and meteorologist from Puerto Rico; Englishman Lionel Pitchford, who has run an orphanage in Nepal for three decades; and American entrepreneur James (J.D.) Russell.

"It was an honor to see so many nations represented on our flight today,” Blue Origin's Phil Joyce, senior vice president, New Shepard, said in a postflight statement. "The view of our fragile planet from space has a unifying effect on all who witness it, and I am always eager to see how our astronauts use this experience for the benefit of Earth."

All six passengers were spaceflight rookies except Russell, who flew on Blue Origin's NS-28 mission in November 2024. You can learn more about each of them in our NS-34 "meet the crew" story.

NS-34 was the 14th human spaceflight to date for New Shepard, which consists of a rocket topped by a crew capsule. Both of these elements are reusable; the rocket comes back to Earth for a vertical, powered touchdown like those performed by SpaceX's Falcon 9 rockets, and the capsule lands softly under parachutes.

Each New Shepard flight lasts 10 to 12 minutes from liftoff to capsule touchdown. During this brief time, passengers get above the Kármán line — the 62-mile-high (100 kilometers) demarcation widely regarded as the point where space begins — and experience a few minutes of weightlessness.

Blue Origin has not revealed its ticket prices, so we don't how much folks usually pay for a ride. But it's safe to say that it's considerably less than Sun ponied up back in 2021.

That sum was a philanthropic contribution. according to Blue Origin.

"The proceeds from the $28 million bid benefitted 19 space-focused charities to inspire future generations to pursue careers in STEAM [science, technology, engineering, art and math] and help shape the future of life in space," the company wrote in an NS-34 mission description.

Editor's note: This story was updated at 11:20 a.m. ET to include a postflight quote from Phil Joyce.

Jeff Bezos' aerospace company announced on Wednesday (July 30) that it's targeting Sunday (Aug. 3) for the flight, which is called NS-34 because it's the 34th overall mission for Blue Origin's New Shepard suborbital vehicle.

NS-34 will lift off from the company's West Texas spaceport, near the town of Van Horn, on Sunday during a window that opens at 8:30 a.m. EDT (1230 GMT; 7:30 a.m. local Texas time). Blue Origin will stream the action live, starting 30 minutes before launch.

NS-34's passengers are headlined by 34-year-old crypto billionaire Justin Sun, who in June 2021 put down the winning bid — $28 million — in an auction for a seat aboard Blue Origin's first-ever human spaceflight.

Sun couldn't fly on that mission due to scheduling issues. It launched on July 20, 2021 — the 52nd anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing — with Bezos, his brother Mark, aviation pioneer Wally Funk and Dutch student Oliver Daemen onboard.

Sun's five crewmates on NS-34 are real estate investor and adventurer Arvinder (Arvi) Singh Bahal, who was born in India but is now an American citizen; Turkish businessman and photographer Gökhan Erdem; Deborah Martorell, a journalist and meteorologist from Puerto Rico; Englishman Lionel Pitchford, who has run an orphanage in Kathmandu for 30 years; and American entrepreneur James (J.D.) Russell, who also flew on Blue Origin's NS-28 mission in November 2024.

Also on Wednesday, Blue Origin revealed the NS-34 mission patch, which features an element of each passenger's life story. Here's the company's explanation, which you can find on its website:

• The globe symbolizes Arvi Bahal’s passion for travel, including visiting every country in the world, and the North and South Poles. 
• The Bosphorus Strait symbolizes Gökhan Erdem’s Turkish heritage.    
• The shape of Puerto Rico symbolizes Deborah Martorell’s home. 
• Mt. Everest symbolizes Lionel Pitchford’s decades of work in Nepal. 
• The book symbolizes J.D. Russell’s foundation, founded in honor of his deceased daughter, and dedicated to supporting children’s education and assisting first responder families. 
• The banana symbolizes H.E. Justin Sun's passion for conceptual art. 
• The sun in the center symbolizes H.E. Justin Sun, Deborah Martorell’s meteorology background, and new adventures for the whole crew.

Each New Shepard mission lasts 10 to 12 minutes, from liftoff to the parachute-aided touchdown of the vehicle's capsule. (New Shepard's booster also comes back to Earth safely for refurbishment and reuse.)

Passengers experience a few minutes of weightlessness and get to see Earth against the blackness of space. We don't know what this experience costs (except in rare cases like Sun's); Blue Origin has not revealed its ticket prices.

NS-34 will be Blue Origin's 14th crewed mission to date and its fifth such flight of 2025.

The museum's flagship building on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. was on track to have more than 6,000 visitors be among the first to see the returning exhibits, like John Glenn's Mercury capsule "Friendship 7," and all new displays, such as SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket parts, a Blue Origin crew cabin and an immersive 3D-printed Mars habitat.

"Reopening our main hall with so many iconic aerospace artifacts, as well as completely new exhibitions, will give visitors much more to see and enjoy," said Chris Browne, the John and Adrienne Mars Director of the National Air and Space Museum, in a statement. "We are thrilled to open this next phase of exhibitions to the public."

The new galleries are part of a $900 million, full-building overhaul that began in 2018 and is expected to be complete by the museum's 50th anniversary in July 2026. The five galleries that premiered to the public on Monday were the second set of reimagined and relaunched halls to reopen after a similar debut in 2022.

The new experiences began outside the building as its north entrance re-opened to the public for the first time in three years. Located alongside Jefferson Drive, the new entryway features a wing-like vestibule.

From there, the doors led directly into the "Boeing Milestones of Flight Hall," which displays some of the museum's most iconic objects. The hall underwent a restoration in 2014, so the artifacts remain mostly the same, but during its closure, the floor and ceiling were replaced and wall-length screens were added to preview what awaits visitors further into the museum.

Adjacent to "Milestones" is the new "Futures in Space" exhibition, which aims to recapture the visitor experience from when the National Air and Space Museum first opened and the space artifacts on exhibit were still contemporary to the day. Premiering in this gallery are items from the companies and other venues exploring space today, including Virgin Galactic and Axiom Space, as well as SpaceX and Blue Origin.

Rather than organize the displays by program or historic period, "Futures in Space" uses the objects it exhibits to explore the answers to a series of questions, such as: Who decides who goes to space? Why do we go? And what will we do when we get there?

Artwork from the museum's extensive collection and imagery from pop culture references to the future of spaceflight complete the hall, which also includes a stage and seating area for live talks and presentations.

The other galleries that opened to the public on Monday explore aviation history, including the "Barron Hilton Pioneers of Flight," "World War I: The Birth of Military Aviation" and the "Allan and Shelley Holt Innovations Gallery." The Lockheed Martin IMAX Theater was also upgraded and is open again.

"We look forward to welcoming many more people into these modernized and inspiring new spaces," said Browne.

Entrance to the National Air and Space Museum remains free, but time entry passes available from the Smithsonian's website are required.

The mission is expected to launch in Spring 2026, and will deliver the Owl sensor to geostationary transfer orbit (GTO), before the instrument transitions to operational activities in geostationary orbit (GEO).

Blue Ring is Blue Origin's modular, multi-destination satellite bus, with the ability to support up to 13 payloads across multiple ports. Blue Ring can carry up to 8,800 pounds (4,000 kilograms) of mission cargo and is designed for high maneuverability. The spacecraft is capable of launching into a variety of destinations in Earth orbit and can also go to deep space — to the moon and Mars, for example.

The spacecraft will launch on Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket, which lifted off for the first time in January 2025. That mission reached orbit with a pathfinder version of Blue Ring meant to validate the spacecraft's mechanics and avionics. The upcoming Owl sensor integration will be the platform's first operational flight.

Blue Ring's 2026 mission aims to demonstrate the spacecraft's capabilities while the onboard Owl sensor supports national security and commercial interests in space situational awareness.

"Integrating Scout’s Owl sensor on this first mission marks a significant step forward in advancing SDA capabilities and underscores our commitment to supporting the nation’s mission requirements," Paul Ebertz, senior vice president of Blue Origin’s In-Space Systems business unit, said in a statement.

The Owl sensor is designed to detect, track and characterize objects in orbit — including satellites, debris and other space flotsam — from long distances to support SDA initiatives. Owl is powered by artificial intelligence to autonomously identify and classify threats or anomalies.

On this mission, the sensor will support the U.S. Space Force's goal to maintain space superiority, according to the Blue Origin release.

The partnership highlights Blue Origin's growing focus on missions in support of national security and U.S. dominance in space amid growing orbital congestion and geopolitical tensions around orbital real estate.

"We've always believed that no single company can bring the best space superiority capabilities to the market alone," Scout Space CEO Philip Hover-Smoot said in the release. "We’re thrilled to work with Blue Origin to bring Scout’s secure solutions onboard this historic first Blue Ring mission."

In June 2021, Sun — the billionaire founder of the blockchain platform Tron — won an auction for a seat aboard Blue Origin's first-ever crewed spaceflight.

That mission launched on July 20 of that year, carrying Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos and three other people to and from suborbital space on the company's reusable New Shepard vehicle. Sun was not on board, however; he had to back out due to scheduling conflicts, the company said at the time.

Sun had not identified himself as the winning bidder when that flight lifted off. The big reveal came in December 2021, when the crypto billionaire went public and said he now planned to fly in 2022 with five other "space warriors."

That didn't happen, either. But Sun's long-deferred spaceflight is now just around the corner: He is officially on the manifest for NS-34, New Shepard's next human spaceflight, Blue Origin announced on Monday (July 21). The company has not yet disclosed a target launch date for the flight but is expected to do so soon.

Here's a brief profile of the 34-year-old Sun and his five NS-34 crewmates, using information provided by Blue Origin.

• Arvinder (Arvi) Singh Bahal, a real estate investor and adventurer who was born in India but is a naturalized U.S. citizen. He has visited every country in the world, as well as both the north and south poles.
• Gökhan Erdem, a Turkish businessman, photographer and space enthusiast who "dreams of one day traveling to the International Space Station and possibly even beyond," Blue Origin wrote.
• Deborah Martorell, a journalist and meteorologist from Puerto Rico who has taken a microgravity-inducing airplane flight and reported on a number of space missions, including NASA's Artemis 1 moon flight. She's also a Solar System Ambassador for NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
• Lionel Pitchford, an Englishman who has long lived in Spain and traveled the world. After losing his sister and her family in a 1992 plane crash in Nepal, he founded a nonprofit in the nation devoted to helping disadvantaged children. Pitchford has also run an orphanage in Kathmandu for the last 30 years.
• James (J.D.) Russell, an entrepreneur who founded the venture capital firm Alpha Funds. He also established the Victoria Russell Foundation, a nonprofit that honors the memory of his deceased daughter by "supporting children's education and assisting the families of first responders," Blue Origin wrote. Unlike the other NS-34 passengers, Russell is not a spaceflight rookie; he flew on the NS-28 mission in November 2024.
• Justin Sun, who is worth about $8.5 billion, according to Forbes. In addition to his Tron work, Sun is the ambassador and former Permanent Representative of Grenada to the World Trade Organization and serves as an advisor to the HTX crypto exchange. "A protege of Alibaba's Jack Ma, Sun was featured on the cover of Forbes Magazine in April 2025, where he was recognized as one of the most dynamic and outspoken figures in crypto and earning the moniker 'Crypto's Billionaire Barker' for his bold approach to innovation, advocacy and industry leadership," Blue Origin wrote. Sun's winning $28 million bid for the New Shepard seat in 2021 was donated to Club for the Future, Blue Origin's education nonprofit.

NS-34 will be the 14th crewed New Shepard flight to date, and the fifth such mission of 2025. The most recent, NS-33, lifted off on June 29.

New Shepard missions fly from Blue Origin's launch site in West Texas, near the town of Van Horn. Each one lasts 10 to 12 minutes from launch to the parachute-aided touchdown of the New Shepard crew capsule. (New Shepard's rocket also comes back down to Earth for a safe landing and eventual reuse.)

New Shepard is an autonomous vehicle, so the passengers can sit back and simply enjoy the flight. That experience includes a few minutes of weightlessness and great views of Earth against the blackness of space, from an altitude of more than 62 miles (100 kilometers).

The twin ESCAPADE (Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers) Mars probes had been scheduled to launch last October, on the first-ever flight of Blue Origin's huge, partially reusable New Glenn rocket.

But NASA took the two spacecraft off that flight in September, citing the possibility of a cost-increasing launch delay. That delay did in fact come to pass; New Glenn ended up debuting on Jan. 15, successfully carrying a test version of Blue Origin's Blue Ring spacecraft platform to Earth orbit. The company aimed to land New Glenn's first stage on a ship at sea as well but failed in the attempt.

The ESCAPADE mission, meanwhile, continued in its state of limbo, without a publicly announced launch date.

But that has now been cleared up. On Thursday (July 17), Blue Origin announced that ESCAPADE will launch the second-ever flight of New Glenn, which is targeted for no earlier than Aug. 15 from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.

That's later than the company had originally planned; Blue Origin had been eyeing late spring for the flight, known as NG-2, but pushed it back last month.

"This will be an exciting mission for New Glenn and Mars exploration. ESCAPADE is not only New Glenn’s first interplanetary mission, it’s also the first multi-spacecraft orbital science mission to study the Martian magnetosphere. And, we hope to land and recover our booster for the first time. Mars, here we come. Thank you to @NASA for riding with us to space," Blue Origin CEO Dave Limp said via X on Thursday.

ESCAPADE won't be the only payload flying on NG-2; the 320-foot-tall (98 meters) New Glenn will also carry a technology demonstration for satellite-communications company Viasat, according to Blue Origin.

The two ESCAPADE probes were built by California-based company Rocket Lab. They're known as Blue and Gold, the colors of the University of California, Berkeley, whose Space Sciences Laboratory will manage the $80 million mission for NASA.

That mission "will analyze how Mars’ magnetic field guides particle flows around the planet, how energy and momentum are transported from the solar wind through the magnetosphere, and what processes control the flow of energy and matter into and out of the Martian atmosphere," NASA wrote in a description of ESCAPADE.

"The observations will reveal the planet’s real-time response to space weather and how the Martian magnetosphere changes over time," they added.

American companies launched 21 commercial space missions in June 2025, which was a new record for a single month, according to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).

The old record of 20 was set in November 2024.

"Operations during the record month include 21 launches conducted by four operators: Blue Origin, Rocket Lab, SpaceX and United Launch Alliance," FAA officials said in an emailed statement.

"These occurred in California, Florida, Texas and New Zealand, and involved orbital, suborbital and commercial human spaceflight missions," they added. (California-based Rocket Lab's primary launch site is on New Zealand's North Island.)

SpaceX was by far the busiest of the four operators, launching 15 of the month's 21 missions. Twelve of those 15 flights were devoted to building out the company's Starlink broadband megaconstellation in low Earth orbit.

June continued a very active 2025 for SpaceX, which has launched 81 missions so far this year. The company is therefore on pace to break its single-year record of 134 orbital liftoffs, which was set in 2024. (Those numbers don't count the suborbital test flights of SpaceX's new Starship megarocket, which launched four times in 2024 and has flown three times so far this year.)

SpaceX was also responsible for one of June's two human spaceflight missions — Ax-4, which sent four private astronauts toward the International Space Station on June 25.

The month's other crewed mission was NS-33, a suborbital tourist flight by Blue Origin that launched and landed on June 29.

Blue Origin sent its 70th person into space today (June 29) on its 13th rocket flight to carry passengers.

The company's New Shepard suborbital launch vehicle lifted off Saturday at 9:39 a.m. CDT (10:39 a.m. EDT or 1439 GMT) from its Launch Site One in West Texas. On board were husband and wife Allie and Carl Kuehner, Leland Larson, Freddie Rescigno, Jr., Owolabi Salis and James Sitkin.

Carl Kuehner became Blue Origin's astronaut number 70, which based on prior precedent, was determined by the seat on board the New Shepard capsule that he assigned for the flight. He also became the 750th person in history to reach space, as recorded by the Association of Space Explorers' Registry of Space Travelers.

The 10-minute NS-33 mission — numbered such as this was Blue Origin's 33rd New Shepard flight overall — went to plan, with both the propulsion module (Tail 5) making a safe vertical landing and the crew capsule, named "RSS Kármán Line," returning the passengers to a parachute-slowed, air thruster-cushioned touchdown not far from where they launched.

For about three minutes as the gumdrop-shaped capsule reached its apogee, or highest point away from Earth, the Kuehners, Larson, Rescigno, Salis and Sitkin experienced weightlessness and saw the curvature of the planet set against the stark blackness of space.

The flight reached a 345,044 feet (105.2 km) above the ground, surpassing the Kármán Line, the internationally-accepted boundary between Earth and space at 62 miles high (100 kilometers).

Flying along with the crew were more than 1,000 physical and digital postcards designed by students and the public, as collected by The Museum of Flight in Seattle and Parkcrest Elementary in Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada. The cards are part of an on going project by Blue Origin's non-profit organization Club For the Future.

As with all New Shepard fights, the cost per seat on NS-33 was not disclosed. The passengers included an environmentalist, the chairman of a real estate development firm, the former CEO of a public transportation company, an electrical wire and cable distributor, and two attorneys.

The six NS-33 passengers dubbed themselves "The Solstice 33," as they were originally scheduled to launch on the summer solstice (June 21) but were delayed by poor weather conditions. Their flight brought the total number of people who have flown on suborbital flights to 123, according to the Association of Space Explorers.

UPDATE for 11 a.m. ET: Blue Origin has successfully launched 6 passengers to space an back on NS-33. See our full wrap story on the launch, photos and video.

Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin plans to launch six people to suborbital space Sunday, after a round of weather delays last weekend.

The mission — known as NS-33, because it will be the 33rd overall flight of the company's New Shepard vehicle — was originally scheduled to lift off from Blue Origin's West Texas site on Saturday (June 21) morning. But Mother Nature didn't cooperate; high winds forced a scrub. The launch was then targeted for Sunday at 8:30 a.m. EDT (1230 GMT; 7:30 a.m. local Texas time). But the weather didn't cooperate again.

Now, Blue Origin has set a new liftoff target for Sunday, June 29, at 10:38 a.m. EDT (1438 GMT; 9:38 a.m. local Texas time).

New Shepard is an autonomous, fully reusable vehicle that consists of a first-stage booster and a crew capsule. Its flights last 10 to 12 minutes from liftoff to capsule touchdown; passengers get to experience a few minutes of weightlessness and see Earth against the blackness of space.

The people going up on the NS-33 mission are Allie and Carl Kuehner, a husband and wife who are both into conservation and exploration; philanthropist and beekeeper Leland Larson; entrepreneur Freddie Rescigno, Jr.; lawyer and author Owolabi Salis; and retired attorney Jim Sitkin.

You can learn more about each of them in our NS-33 crew reveal story.

NS-33 will be Blue Origin's 13th human spaceflight mission overall and its fourth of 2025 so far. (Most of the company's flights have been uncrewed research missions.)

The company first launched people to the final frontier on July 20, 2021, the 52nd anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing. Bezos and his brother Mark went up on that landmark New Shepard flight, along with aviation pioneer Wally Funk and Dutch student Oliver Daemen.

Editor's note: This story was updated at 10:00 a.m. EDT on June 28 with the new launch date announced by Blue Origin.

NS-33 will be Blue Origin's 13th crewed launch to date, and the fifth New Shepard launch of 2025. The mission will carry six passengers to the edge of space, where they will experience several minutes of weightlessness before their capsule parachutes back down to terra firma.

The crew includes Allie and Carl Kuehner, Leland Larson, Freddie Rescigno, Jr., Owolabi Salis, and James Sitkin. Here's a bit of background on each of them.

The NS-33 mission is scheduled to lift off from Blue Origin's Launch Site One in West Texas, on Saturday during a window that opens at 9:30 a.m. EDT (1330 GMT). A livestream of the launch will be available on Space.com beginning 30 minutes before liftoff, as well as on Blue Origin's website.

That six-passenger suborbital flight will lift off from the company's West Texas launch site, on a date that hasn't been announced yet.

The upcoming mission is known as NS-33, because it will be the 33rd overall launch of Blue Origin's reusable, autonomous New Shepard vehicle. It will be the company's 13th human spaceflight mission.

Here's a brief rundown of the six NS-33 passengers, using information provided by Blue Origin.

• Allie Kuehner, an environmentalist, adventurer and explorer who serves on the board of the conservation nonprofit Nature is Nonpartisan.
• Carl Kuehner, Allie's husband and a conservationist as well. He serves as chairman of Building and Land Technology, a real estate firm "dedicated to building communities and ecosystems that promote long-term growth and sustainability," according to Blue Origin.
• Leland Larson, a philanthropist, gardener and beekeeper who previously led School Bus Services, Inc. and Larson Transportation Services, both of them family-owned Oregon businesses.
• Freddie Rescigno, Jr., the founder, president and CEO of the wire and cable company Commodity Cables. He's also a competitive golfer.
• Owolabi Salis, a financial consultant and lawyer who wrote the book "Equitocracy." Salis "is also a key member of The Soul Maker Ministry, which preaches diversity given the diverse nature of the universe," Blue Origin wrote. "He is dedicating this mission to victims of discrimination and civil rights violations."
• Jim Sitkin, a retired attorney and lifelong adventurer who currently volunteers for a non-governmental organization that works with government and community leaders in Central Europe and sub-Saharan Africa.

New Shepard flights last 10 to 12 minutes from liftoff to the touchdown of the vehicle's crew capsule. (New Shepard's first-stage booster also comes back to Earth for a safe landing and eventual reuse).

During this brief time, New Shepard passengers get to experience a few minutes of weightlessness and see the curve of Earth against the blackness of space.

Blue Origin's first crewed mission was in July 2021, a flight that included Bezos and his brother Mark. NS-33 will be the company's fourth human spaceflight of 2025.

Jeff Bezos' aerospace company had been targeting late spring for the second launch of the 320-foot-tall (98 meters) New Glenn, which features a reusable first stage. But that's no longer the plan.

"New Glenn's second mission will take place NET [no earlier than] August 15th," Blue Origin CEO Dave Limp said via X on Monday (June 9).

"Following in the footsteps of our first booster, we've chosen the name 'Never Tell Me The Odds' for Tail 2," he added in the post. "One of our key mission objectives will be to land and recover the booster. This will take a little bit of luck and a lot of excellent execution. We're on track to produce eight GS2s this year, and the one we'll fly on this second mission was hot-fired in April. Gradatim Ferociter!"

The first New Glenn booster was named "So You're Telling Me There's a Chance," a line from the 1994 Jim Carrey movie "Dumb and Dumber."

The "chance" Blue Origin was referring to was the possibility that the booster would land safely on the company's drone ship shortly after its Jan. 16 launch from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. That didn't happen, but the rest of that debut flight went well: New Glenn successfully carried its payload — a test version of Blue Origin's new Blue Ring spacecraft platform — to Earth orbit.

The GS2s that Limp mentioned are New Glenn upper stages. And the number he cited is meaningful; the company has previously said that it planned to launch eight New Glenn missions this year — a target that is almost certainly out of reach at this point, as Ars Technica's Eric Berger noted.

"Gradatim ferociter," by the way, is Blue Origin's motto. It's Latin for "Step by step, ferociously."

Limp's X post didn't give a reason for the delay to Aug. 15. And the company still hasn't announced what New Glenn — which can haul 50 tons (45 metric tons) of payload to low Earth orbit (LEO) — will carry on the test flight.

In February, during a talk at the 27th Annual Commercial Space Conference in Washington, Limp said that Blue Origin was "still looking for opportunities."

"If it came to it and we just had to fly a mass simulator, we'll fly a mass simulator," he said at the time.

One newly unveiled key element is the "Transporter," a vehicle that can be launched on a single Blue Origin New Glenn rocket into low Earth orbit. It will harvest leftover propellant from the booster's second stage and then haul the hydrogen and oxygen to lunar orbit.

Transporter is designed to lug roughly 110 tons (100 metric tons) from Earth orbit to lunar orbit. And in Mars mode, it will be able to haul 33 tons (30 metric tons) into orbit around the Red Planet.

Making its mark

Blue Origin is also busily developing a robotic lander called Mark 1, as well as a Mark 2 version able to land up to four astronauts on the moon, either to equatorial or polar sites, depending on NASA requirements. A Mark 2 cargo-toting version has also been scoped out.

Mark 1 is capable of landing up to 3.3 tons (3 metric tons) on the moon. The larger Mark 2 vehicle can land up to 22 tons (20 metric tons) in a reusable configuration, or up to 33 tons (30 metric tons) in a one-way configuration, making it brawny enough to deliver habit modules to the lunar surface.

The Mark 2 lander is being developed under NASA's NextSTEP-2 Appendix P Sustaining Lunar Development (SLD) contract.

Hardware rich

John Couluris, senior vice president of lunar permanence for Blue Origin, detailed the company's plans during a Lunar Surface Innovation Consortium (LSIC) meeting held from May 20 to May 22 at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Maryland.

If we can open up the moon, Couluris said, it will become "our eventual hub for the rest of the solar system."

The pace of Blue Origin work on lunar hardware is palpable.

Couluris said Blue Origin is moving forward on becoming "hardware rich," with the firm's target to get the production line moving — to support reliable access to the moon in a low-cost manner.

Serial number one of the Mark 1 lunar lander, for example, is scheduled to fly to the moon's south pole for the first time this year.

If successful, Mark 1 would be the largest lander ever to touch down on the moon. Blue Origin is working with NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative to outfit that first craft with the space agency's Stereo Cameras for Lunar Plume Surface Studies (SCALPSS) system, which will gauge the effects of the lander's engine plume on the dusty, rock-strewn lunar surface.

"We are currently building two of these vehicles," Couluris said, "to get hardware rich."

First moonshot

Couluris underscored a key challenge that Blue Origin is working on — figuring out a way to make hydrogen and oxygen storable for appreciable lengths of time. These are the propellants for Blue Origin's BE engine line, which powers the Mark 1 and Mark 2 landers and the Transporter.

Success in this area would therefore be huge, Couluris said.

"This opens up the solar system," making the moon a kind of JFK airport, according to Couluris.

And Blue Origin is making serious progress on its lander propulsion system, he added.

"The build of this engine that's going to power our first Mark 1 is almost complete and will be integrated into the vehicle probably late summer," said Couluris.

At Blue Origin's facility in Washington state, the zero-boil-off technology is advancing, already demonstrated to work at temperatures of 20 Kelvin (minus 424 degrees Fahrenheit) and 90 Kelvin (minus 298 F) in the lab.

"We're making our first moonshot this year," said Jacqueline Cortese, senior director of civil space at Blue Origin. "Prior to the end of this decade, we will be landing two crews on the lunar surface" in partnership with NASA's Artemis program, she added.

Blue Origin self-funded the Mark 1. No government resources went into the vehicle, Cortese told the LSIC audience. "Ideally, we will have a successful first mission of Mark 1, then incorporate any findings and be ready to fly again," she said.

The Mark 1 will not only be the largest lander to ever touch down on the moon but also the only liquid oxygen/hydrogen-fueled lander to do so, Cortese said.

"So, please keep your fingers, toes — anything — crossed for a successful first Mark 1 mission this year," she said. "It's been a long time coming for a lot of people at Blue Origin."

Reinvent traditional aerospace

The moon is a stepping stone to Mars, Blue Origin CEO Dave Limp said at the 2025 Humans to the Moon and Mars Summit (H2M2), hosted by Explore Mars, Inc. and held May 28 to May 29 at George Washington University in Washington, D.C.

"If we're going to get to Mars, the path to that is getting back to the moon, and in a permanent way," Limp said.

Limp also spotlighted Blue Origin's work on zero-boil-off technology and the firm's Transporter tanker. Lab demonstrations are "coming along really well," with the firm's first prototype cryo-cooler coming online in the next couple of months.

"I'm very optimistic that this is going to be a solved problem in the next year or two," said Limp.

Blue Origin is steadfast in its desire to dramatically lower the price of launching material from Earth, Limp said. And doing so means innovation by commercial companies, he added.

"We want to reinvent traditional aerospace," said Limp. "We want to go faster. We want to be more decisive. We want to do it in a more cost-effective way. You can't use the traditional aerospace playbook and do all those things."

Driving demand

Of similar view is Brian Ippolitto, senior director of operations at Marotta Controls, an innovative aerospace and defense company.

"Commercial space leaders are actively positioning themselves at the forefront of cislunar and lunar development," Ippolitto told Space.com.

"As they continue to design and build platforms capable of operating beyond low Earth orbit, they are driving demand for more advanced and reliable components that can endure the extreme conditions of deep space," said Ippolitto.

Among the most significant challenges ahead, Ippolitto pointed out, "are the requirements for colder operating temperatures and longer-duration missions — both critical to the success of sustained lunar presence."

Three world travelers, two Space Camp alums and an aerospace executive whose last name aptly matched their shared adventure traveled into space and back today (May 31), becoming the latest six people to fly with Blue Origin, the spaceflight company founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos.

Mark Rocket joined Jaime Alemán, Jesse Williams, Paul Jeris, Gretchen Green and Amy Medina Jorge on board the RSS First Step — Blue Origin's first of two human-rated New Shepard capsules — for a trip above the Kármán Line, the 62-mile-high (100-kilometer) internationally recognized boundary between Earth and space.

For about three minutes, the six NS-32 crewmates experienced weightlessness and had an astronaut's-eye view of the planet.

"It was perfection," said Green soon after returning to Earth. "There are not a lot of times in your life when most of the time you're just doing your best, struggling through the hard times, enjoying the good ones, but there are very few things in life that were true perfection. And when I looked out at space and back down to the Earth, [it] was perfect."

The New Shepard launch vehicle — which included the capsule and a propulsion module, both of which are reusable — lifted off today at 8:39 a.m. CDT (9:39 a.m. EDT or 1339 GMT) from Blue Origin's Launch Site One near Van Horn in West Texas. About two and a half minutes into the flight, the booster cut off its engine and then separated, allowing the capsule to continue its coast upward into space and for it to return to Earth to make a propulsive, vertical landing on a concrete pad not far from where it launched.

The six NS-32 passengers, self-dubbed "The Pathfinders," meanwhile, reached an apogee, or maximum altitude, of 340,290 feet (104 km) above the ground, qualifying Rocket, Alemán, Williams, Jeris, Green and Jorge for Blue Origin-issued astronaut wings and their entry in the Association of Space Explorers' Registry of Worldwide Space Travelers.

The RSS First Step then descended back to Earth, using parachutes and a last-second jet of compressed air to make a soft touchdown about 10 minutes after it left Earth. Blue Origin personnel were soon on hand to inspect the vehicle, open the hatch and welcome the NS-32 crewmates home.

Mark Rocket became the first New Zealander to reach space on the mission. His connection to aerospace goes beyond his apt name and today's flight; he's currently the CEO of Kea Aerospace and previously helped lead Rocket Lab, a competing space launch company to Blue Origin that sends most of its rockets up from New Zealand.

Alemán, Williams and Jeris each traveled the world extensively before briefly leaving the planet today. An attorney from Panama, Alemán is now the first person to have visited all 193 countries recognized by the United Nations, traveled to the North and South Poles, and now, have been into space.

"It was such an incredible ride," said Alemán. "Very moving, very spiritual, even better than I ever imagined. For me, as someone who has been traveling — thank you to the gods — all my life, it is like a cherry on top of a cake."

For Williams, an entrepreneur from Canada, Saturday's flight continued his record of achieving high altitudes; he has summitted Mt. Everest and five of the other six other highest mountains across the globe. Jeris spent his childhood watching rockets take off from Florida and then travelled to more than 149 countries as he waited his own chance to fly into space.

Green and Jorge were cheered on during the flight from a launch viewing party at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama, home to U.S. Space Camp. An experienced radiologist, Green was both an attendee and counselor at Space Camp prior to chairing the Space Camp Alumni Association, and she is now a member of the rocket center's education foundation board.

As a high school and middle school teacher in Galveston, Texas, Jorge has brought students to Space Camp, as well as attended Space Academy for Educators herself. This was her second experience being weightless, having earlier conducted student-designed experiments aboard a parabolic flight.

The NS-32 launch was Blue Origin's 12th human spaceflight since 2021 — bringing the total passenger count to 64 — and the company's 30th flight above the Kármán Line since 2015. This was the first launch since Bezos' fiancé Lauren Sánchez flew with an all-woman crew that included pop star Katy Perry and TV morning show host Gayle King in April.

Blue Origin is gearing up for the launch of its next space tourism flight, and you can watch the mission live here at Space.com.

The 32nd overall mission of Blue Origin's New Shepard suborbital vehicle, known as NS-32, is set to lift off today (May 31) from the company's Launch Site One in West Texas. The mission marks the 12th human flight for the New Shepard program.

Blue Origin is aiming for a launch window that opens at 9:30 a.m. EDT (1330 GMT) on Saturday. A livestream of the New Shepard launch will be available on Blue Origin's website 30 minutes before liftoff, and it will be simulcast on YouTube and Blue Origin's X account. The broadcast will also be carried at the top of this page as well as the Space.com homepage and YouTube channel. The webcast will include commentary, mission updates and information about the crew members flying on NS-32.

The NS-32 crew includes entrepreneurs, professionals and a science educator. Among them are Aymette Medina Jorge, a U.S.-based STEM advocate; Dr. Gretchen Green, a radiologist and lifelong space enthusiast; and Jaime Alemán, a former ambassador to the U.S. and lifelong adventurer, having visited all 193 U.N.-recognized countries.

Also flying on the mission are Jesse Williams, a businessman and mountaineer, who has summited six of the seven highest peaks on Earth, including Mt. Everest; Mark Rocket, an aerospace entrepreneur set to become the first New Zealander to reach space; Paul Jeris, an entrepreneur, avid traveler and lifelong space enthusiast, who was inspired by his NASA engineer father.

NS-32 will carry the six passengers on a roughly 11-minute journey that will take them past the Kármán line — the internationally recognized boundary of space, which lies 62 miles (100 kilometers) above Earth. The capsule will separate from the rocket booster shortly after liftoff and spend several minutes in microgravity before descending back to the desert floor under parachutes downrange in Texas.

During the brief mission, the NS-32 crew will experience a few minutes of weightlessness, allowing them to float freely inside the capsule and observe Earth from space. Through the capsule’s large panoramic windows, the crew will see the planet's curvature and the stark contrast between the bright blue atmosphere and the blackness of space.

Many astronauts describe this as the "overview effect" — a profound shift in perspective that evokes a deep sense of connection to Earth and the fragility of its environment.

The NS-32 suborital mission, which will be Blue Origin's 12th human flight to date, is expected to lift off from Launch Site One in West Texas during a window that opens at 9:30 a.m. EDT (1330 GMT). Blue Origin will stream the launch live, beginning 30 mins prior to launch; Space.com will air the webcast if, as expected, the company makes it available.

The suborbital flight aboard Blue Origin's New Shepard rocket, lasting approximately 11 minutes, will carry six civilians with varied professional and personal achievements, highlighting the increasing accessibility of space tourism. Here's some information about the six people who will fly on the NS-32 mission, which Blue Origin provided in a mission update.

Aymette (Amy) Medina Jorge

As a STEM educator from Galveston, Texas, Amy Medina Jorge has led over 60 student-driven space experiments, including biometric sensor tests and in-flight 3D printing on zero-G flights. Born in Puerto Rico, she advocates for Hispanic representation in STEM fields and was honored with the 2023 AIAA and Challenger Center Trailblazing STEM Educator Award. Her seat is sponsored by Farmacias Similares, a Mexican company focused on social impact and accessible healthcare across Latin America.

Dr. Gretchen Green

A radiologist with over 20 years of clinical experience specializing in women's imaging, Dr. Gretchen Green is also a lifelong space enthusiast. Her journey began with Space Camp in 1986, where she later returned as a Crew Trainer and eventually chaired the Space Camp Alumni Association. She currently serves on the board of the U.S. Space & Rocket Center Education Foundation.

As a nationally recognized expert witness and entrepreneur, Green founded The Expert Resource to help doctors build expert witness practices. Green is also a certified life coach who has biked across the U.S., reached the North Pole, and holds degrees from Harvard, Yale and Brown.

Jaime Alemán

A Panamanian attorney and former ambassador to the U.S., Jaime Alemán is also a seasoned traveler, having visited all 193 United Nations-recognized countries, both the North and South Poles — and now he's headed to space. Alemán holds degrees from Notre Dame and Duke Law School and is a senior partner at Alemán, Cordero, Galindo & Lee — a law firm he co-founded in 1985.

He also serves on the board of one of Panama's largest private banks and holds board positions with Special Olympics International, Duke Law School and the Woodrow Wilson Center's Latin America Program.

Jesse Williams

Canadian entrepreneur Jesse Williams has launched multiple ventures, including eDirect Software, Car History Group and Just Think Media. An avid cyclist and mountaineer, Williams has summited six of the seven highest peaks on Earth, including Mt. Everest. Several symbols on the NS-32 mission patch — bike gears and Mt. Everest — represent his adventurous spirit.

Mark Rocket

The CEO of Kea Aerospace and president of Aerospace New Zealand, Mark Rocket is set to become the first New Zealander to reach space. Christchurch-based Kea, which was founded in 2018, focuses on developing sustainable aerospace technology aimed at advancing high-altitude flight and environmental monitoring. Rocket was also a seed investor of Rocket Lab, co-directing the company from 2007 to 2011. The kea parrot on the mission patch symbolizes his homeland of New Zealand.

Paul Jeris

A seasoned real estate businessman and global traveler, Paul Jeris' passion for space was sparked early by his father, a NASA engineer. Growing up on Florida's Space Coast, he spent summers watching historic launches of the Apollo, space shuttle, Mariner, Voyager and Viking missions.

A dedicated explorer, Jeris has traveled to over 149 countries with the goal of visiting every nation on Earth. But his ultimate dream has always been to journey into space and witness the planet's beauty from above. He also gives back to the travel community by serving on several local and regional tourism boards.

Blue Origin, which was founded by Amazon's Jeff Bezos, announced on Tuesday (May 27) that it's targeting Saturday (May 31) for its next crewed suborbital flight.

That mission — called NS-32, because it will be the 32nd overall mission of the reusable New Shepard vehicle — will lift off from Blue Origin's West Texas site during a window that opens at 9:30 a.m. EDT (1330 GMT; 8:30 a.m. local Texas time). Blue Origin will stream the action live, beginning 30 minutes before liftoff.

NS-32 will carry six people to suborbital space and back, on a flight that will last a total of 10 to 12 minutes.

Those passengers are Panamanian businessman and attorney Jaime Alemán, who served as that nation's ambassador to the United States; radiologist, life coach and explorer Gretchen Green; entrepreneur and real estate developer Paul Jeris; award-winning middle school and high school teacher Aymette Medina Jorge; the aptly named Mark Rocket, an entrepreneur from New Zealand; and Canadian entrepreneur, adventurer and mountaineer Jesse Williams.

You can learn more about all six in Blue Origin's NS-32 crew reveal update.

Blue Origin's first-ever crewed spaceflight took place on July 20, 2021, the 52nd anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing. Bezos himself flew on that mission, along with his brother Jeff, aviation pioneer Wally Funk and Dutch student Oliver Daemen.

The company has flown a number of celebrities on its crewed missions, including famed "Star Trek" actor William Shatner in October 2021 and pop star Katy Perry just last month.

That flight — known as NS-32, because it will be the 32nd overall mission of of the autonomous, reusable New Shepard vehicle — will lift off from Blue Origin's West Texas launch site on a date yet to be announced.

NS-32 will carry six people on a brief trip to and from suborbital space. The crew consists of the aptly named Mark Rocket, Jaime Alemán, Gretchen Green, Paul Jeris, Aymette Medina Jorge and Jesse Williams, Blue Origin announced on Wednesday (May 21).

Rocket is an entrepreneur from New Zealand with considerable spaceflight bona fides. He's the CEO of Kea Aerospace and the president of Aerospace New Zealand, for example, and was a seed investor in the launch company Rocket Lab, which he also served as co-director until 2011, according to Blue Origin's Wednesday update.

Alemán is a Panamanian businessman and attorney who previously served as that nation's ambassador to the United States.

"He serves on Special Olympics International’s Board of Directors, Duke Law School's Board of Visitors, and the Woodrow Wilson Center’s Latin America Board," Blue Origin wrote in the update. "A lifelong adventurer, Jaime will become the first person to travel to all 193 U.N.-recognized countries, the North and South Poles, and space."

Green is a radiologist, life coach, explorer and Space Camp alumna who bicycled across the United States at age 16 to help fight hunger. Jeris is an entrepreneur and real estate developer whose passion for space was inspired by his father, a NASA engineer.

Medina Jorge is an award-winning middle school and high school STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) teacher who has led more than 60 space and zero-gravity flight experiments. Her seat on NS-32 is sponsored by Farmacias Similares, "a Mexican company committed to social impact and accessible healthcare across Latin America," Blue Origin wrote.

Williams is a Canadian entrepreneur, adventurer and mountaineer who has summitted six of Earth's seven highest peaks, including Mt. Everest.

You can learn more about all six of these people in Blue Origin's update.

NS-32 has a tough act to follow. Blue Origin's most recent launch, NS-31, sent singer Katy Perry, journalist Gayle King, civil rights activist Amanda Nguyen and three other women to the final frontier on April 14. It was the first human spaceflight with no male crewmembers since June 16, 1963, when the Soviet Union's Valentina Tereshkova launched to Earth orbit for a three-day solo mission.

New Shepard flights are considerably shorter than that; they last just 10 to 12 minutes from liftoff until capsule touchdown. During that brief window, passengers experience a few minutes of weightlessness and get to see Earth against the blackness of space.

As the 100th woman to travel to space, Calandrelli isn't just celebrating personal achievement — she's using her journey to inspire others, uplift underrepresented communities and push the boundaries of STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) accessibility.

"Going to space had been something that I had hoped to do … ever since I started studying aerospace engineering," Calandrelli told Space.com. Flying on Blue Origin's NS-28 suborbital flight "was everything I hoped it would be — and so much more."

NS-28, which launched on Nov. 22, 2024, also served as a platform to spotlight issues close to Calandrelli's heart, particularly those affecting her home state of West Virginia. A flash drive she carried into space became a powerful symbol: a zero-gravity indicator filled with nearly 10,000 dreams submitted by followers across the country. With an optional donation for each submission, Calandrelli turned her flight into a fundraiser, carrying people's wishes to the stars while raising over $30,000 for West Virginia's foster care system.

" I recognize that going into space is something that is an incredibly privileged thing to do," Calandrelli said, noting that fewer than 700 people have flown to the final frontier. "I always told myself that if I were to have that chance, I would try to use it to uplift others. In West Virginia, kids are entering the foster system at four times the rate of any other state — it's a system that is really pressed for resources, and so I thought, 'How can I help raise money for that?'"

Calandrelli adopted the handle "@TheSpaceGal" on social media years before going to space. With her NS-28 flight, she noted, she finally lived up to her nickname. Even more rewarding was becoming the 100th woman in space, which is something she embraces with deep gratitude.

"For me, that number was really meaningful. I had a personal goal of trying to be in the first 100 … but to actually be the 100th felt like a bookend to a milestone that was hard fought and hard won — particularly by the women who came before me when it wasn't as popular or accepted," she said. "I feel a lot of gratitude because it was certainly a lot easier for me to achieve this dream than the women who were much earlier in the count."

Calandrelli points to commercial spaceflight as a key driver in increasing diversity within the industry, specifically the representation of women and minorities in space exploration. After all, she noted, about 65 of the first 100 women who have flown in space have done so within the last five years, as private spaceflight has really started to ramp up.

"I'm hopeful that numbers 101 through 1,000 will come about 10 to 20 times faster," she said.

But spaceflight is just one aspect of Calandrelli's broader mission: making science more accessible and exciting to young people and families, especially those without a STEM background. After her Netflix show "Emily's Wonder Lab" came to an end, she launched "Emily's Science Lab" on YouTube, where she continues to share experiments and educational content, making science feel fun and easy for families.

"'Emily's Wonder Lab' was my most successful and visible project — it really helped launch my career in children's education. After that got canceled, I really had to take control of my career, because I didn't want to rely on Netflix to continue having the impact that that show was having," she said. "So … I created my own show. Launching that, taking care of that, fostering that community on YouTube has been my biggest pet project right now."

With more than four million followers across social media platforms and projects in books, television and even a potential documentary about NS-28, Calandrelli is uniquely positioned to inspire the next generation of scientists.

"My goal is to be your scientific BFF. I'm trying to build the tools necessary for families to easily instill science confidence in their kids," Calandrelli said. "I grew up in a family that wasn't in STEM, so I know how intimidating it can be."

With the world becoming more scientifically and technologically advanced, Calandrelli believes building "science confidence" in kids is one of the most valuable gifts parents can give. Her advice for parents and educators is to start with relatable role models and simple, hands-on experiments.

"I always recommend at-home science experiments … with accessible materials like Arm & Hammer baking soda, vinegar and food coloring — stuff you probably already have in your kitchen," she said. "It's a tangible, tactile way for kids to feel like they are a scientist, [and] it helps them see themselves in these roles and careers as they get older."

It's also important to approach science from all angles, Calandrelli. Kids learn in different ways, she explained, so a combination of educational videos, books and hands-on experiments can help parents identify what resonates best with their child and use that to make them feel confident in STEM.

With her distinct blend of scientific expertise, educational passion, and now, astronaut experience, Calandrelli continues to redefine what it means to be a space explorer — not just someone who leaves Earth, but someone who brings others along for the journey.

In high school, Aisha Bowe's guidance counselor told her she wasn't suited for a career in aerospace engineering, and that she should try cosmetology instead. On Monday (April 14), Bowe proved that naysayer wrong in a big way, becoming the first Bahamian woman to fly to space.

Bowe was part of Blue Origin's 11th crewed mission, which carried six women on the first all-female spaceflight since the Soviet Union's Valentina Tereshkova became the first woman in space over 60 years ago. Inside Blue Origin's New Shepard capsule, Aisha Bowe strapped in alongside her five crewmates for a quick, 10.5-minute suborbital ride to space and back.

New Shepard's rocket lifted off with the sextet on Monday at 9:30 a.m. EDT (1330 GMT) from Blue Origin's Launch Site One in West Texas. The brief flight allowed its passengers a few minutes of weightlessness and took them above the Kármán Line — the 62-mile-high (100 kilometers) boundary of space — before parachuting back to Earth for a soft desert touchdown. Bowe's first thought after landing: "I'm ready to go back."

Bowe pursued her dream to go to space by earning degrees in aerospace and space systems engineering. She is a former NASA rocket scientist and is currently CEO of STEMBoard. Bowe also founded the STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) education technology company LINGO and is a standing member of the National Society of Black Engineers and the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics.

Related: Katy Perry and Gayle King launch to space with 4 others on historic all-female Blue Origin rocket flight

Bowe launched with pop star Katy Perry, journalists Gayle King and Lauren Sánchez, author and bioastronautics research scientist Amanda Nguyen and film producer Kerianne Flynn.

Though their flight to space was short, Bowe found a deep connection to the launch through her own roots. In a post-launch press conference on Monday, Bowe drew parallels between the suborbital trajectory of her Blue Origin mission to that of the first American in space, Alan Shepard, for whom Blue Origin's New Shepard vehicle is named.

"In 1961, when Alan Shepard was launched, we know where he left from, but do you know where he landed? He landed in Grand Bahama," Bowe said. Her family is from the Bahamas, and Bowe's 92-year-old grandfather traveled to Texas to watch her launch to space.

Bowe wasn't the only private astronaut representing a nation's milestone in space. Nguyễn became the first Vietnamese woman to fly to space. The mission also carried the 100th person to fly on a private, suborbital spaceflight mission — an honor bestowed upon Bowe, thanks to her New Shepard seat assignment, Seat 04.

The "Firework" superstar launched on a suborbital trip with five celebrity women on Blue Origin's New Shepard rocket on Monday (April 14), cementing her status as the first pop singer in space. She even sang "What A Wonderful World" on the trip after seeing Earth from above.

But that musical milestone in space history could have looked very different, because Katy Perry isn't the first performer with space ambitions. In fact, megastars Lance Bass, Beyonce, Lady Gaga and Justin Bieber all hoped to be first at one time or another in the last decade. Here's a look at those efforts and our take on why they fizzled.

Lance Bass

The first pop singer to try to go to space was Lance Bass of NSYNC, who landed a $20 million trip to the International Space Station in 2002 backed by a documentary. He went through training at Russia's Star City to launch on a Soyuz rocket and spacecraft, but the documentary's insurance company backed out weeks before launch and he lost his seat.

"I was so very highly disappointed, but it was still amazing to be able to finish that training," Bass told Space.com in 2023.

Related: 'I feel super connected to love': Katy Perry reflects on her historic space launch with Blue Origin (video)

Beyonce and Jay-Z

A decade after Bass's space attempt, we got word that megastar Beyonce and husband Jay-Z may have been in talks to make the first music video in space during a launch on Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo, according to a slew of media reports. At the time, Virgin Galactic was still doing glide tests with SpaceShipTwo (its first space launch was in 2018).

We never heard more about whether Beyonce and Jay-Z were among the 700 or so people who reserved a Virgin Galactic trip back then, when tickets cost $250,000 (the company declined to confirm it to me at the time). If they did, we also don't know if they kept the reservation after a fatal test flight crash in 2014. But it's still possible they are still on that list, waiting their turn to fly.

Justin Bieber

Next up to was Justin Bieber, who booked a trip with Virgin Galactic in 2013. Unlike the space rumors of Beyonce and Jay-Z, Bieber's flight (which would also include his manager Scooter Braun) was apparently a lock: The founder of Virgin Galactic, Richard Branson, confirmed it on Twitter (now known as X).

"Great to hear @justinbieber & @scooterbraun are latest @virgingalactic future astronauts. Congrats, see you up there!" Branson wrote on Twitter in June 2013. Branson would eventually fly on the first passenger Virgin Galactic spaceflight in 2021.

"@richardbranson @scooterbraun @virgingalactic let's shoot a music video in SPACE!! #nextLEVEL," Bieber then wrote back on Twitter.

LIke Beyonce, Bieber may still be among the hundreds waiting for their turn to fly on Virgin Galactic. The company, which currently sells suborbital trips for $650,000 a seat (SpaceShipTwo seats eight people — six passengers and two pilots), flew a series of space tourism and science flights with SpaceShipTwo before pausing to build a new "Delta" series of space planes for passenger flights. The first of those new ships is expected to be completed in 2026.

Lady Gaga

Lady Gaga reportedly bought a Virgin Galactic flight in 2013 as well.

The pop superstar was expected to launch on SpaceShipTwo in 2015 to sing a song as part of the Zero G Colony, a three-day festival planned for Spaceport America in New Mexico, the home port of Virgin Galactic. But like Bieber, Gaga would face a long wait (she still hasn't flown), since Virgin Galactic was still years away from its first test spaceflight in 2018 at the time of booking.

Sarah Brightman

Last, but not least, is singer Sarah Brightman, who booked a 10-day trip to the International Space Station with Space Adventures in 2015 that she financed herself. (The total price was never disclosed.)

Brightman underwent spaceflight training with Russia's space agency Roscosmos, the Gagarin Cosomonaut Training Center and Energia, the makers of the Soyuz rocket. But despite being scheduled to launch on Sept. 1, 2015 on a Russian Soyuz rocket, Brightman called the space mission off in May of that year, citing family concerns.

"Ms. Brightman said that, for personal family reasons, her intentions have had to change, and she is postponing her cosmonaut training and flight plans at this time," Brightman's representatives wrote at the time. "She would like to express her extreme gratitude to Roscosmos, Energia, GCTC (Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center), Star City, NASA and all the cosmonauts and astronauts for their support during this exciting time in her life."

That brings us to now, with Katy Perry safely back on Earth and in the record books as the first pop star in space. The only question now is who may be next to fly — and if any of those above still in Virgin Galactic's reservation line may clinch that number two spot.

Oprah Winfrey was on hand Monday (April 14) to witness the launch of Blue Origin's historic NS-31 mission, which carried her friend of nearly 50 years, journalist Gayle King, to suborbital space from West Texas.

Winfrey did not hold back her emotions as the New Shepard rocket flared to propel King along with pop superstar Katy Perry, journalist and author Lauren Sánchez (who's also the fiancee of Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos), rocket scientist Aisha Bowe, bioastronautics researcher Amanda Nguyen and movie producer Kerianne Flynn past the Kármán Line to experience a brief dose of zero gravity before drifting back down to Earth. It was the first all-female spaceflight in more than 60 years.

"I have never been more proud," Winfrey shared on social media as Blue Origin's New Shepard suborbital vehicle faded into the sky. "To see her rise — literally — is one of the most extraordinary things I've ever witnessed."

Winfrey and King's friendship dates back to 1976 in Baltimore, where the pair worked together at WJZ-TV. The future global media mogul was a news station anchor and King was employed as a production assistant.

Related: Gayle King just conquered her fears with Blue Origin's all-female space launch. Here's how she did it.

Wearing bright yellow to honor King's "Sunshine" callsign, Winfrey commented on the day's significance with NS-31 webcast host Charissa Thompson.

"All of us, the whole family, is wearing yellow today," Winfrey said as the mission's countdown clock ticked down. "You know, we've been friends… It'll be 50 years next year. We've been friends since we were 21 and 22, and I've never been more proud of my friend than today. Never been more proud, because this is bigger than just going to space. I mean, I think for her, who, anytime we're on a flight, she's in anybody's lap if there's the slightest bit of turbulence, as like real-world anxiety flying. And this is overcoming a wall of fear, a barrier. I think it's going to be cathartic in so many ways for her."

Winfrey has been one of the most ardent proponents of King's Blue Origin endeavor.

"Because I think life is about continuing to grow into the best of yourself and the fullest expression of yourself," Winfrey added. "And I think that this is one of the most fullest expressions you can possibly have. And I know that I felt deeply that she would regret it [if she didn't fly], and I didn't want to hear about it for the next 15 years. 'I wish I had gone,' you know? And I said, there's only one time that all the women are going up for the first time. You know, there will be other trips, but there's only one first time. So to be a pioneer is great.

"I think for every woman who's on this flight, it's about fulfilling something within themselves. For Gayle, it's about overcoming fear and also stepping into the moment of excitement. And I think it goes beyond this moment of just going up in space. I think this would be an everlasting experience. I was just thinking this morning, Gayle has been there for me for hundreds of events. I can't even remember them, you know, but you will never forget this day. None of us will ever forget this day."

Joining Perry on the 10.5-minute suborbital NS-31 mission, which lifted off from Blue Origin’s Launch Site One, were CBS journalist Gayle King, philanthropist and author Lauren Sánchez, ex-NASA rocket scientist Aisha Bowe, research scientist Amanda Nguyen and film producer Kerianne Flynn.

“I’m still floating,” King said, visibly moved by the successful mission. “I can’t believe it. I cannot believe it.”

After marveling at the odd sensation of a short period of weightlessness in microgravity and taking in the extraordinary views, the intrepid gang and their craft surrendered to Earth’s comforting tug, and the group safely touched back down on the desert floor in a soft parachute-aided landing.

Related: Katy Perry and Gayle King launch to space with 4 others on historic all-female Blue Origin rocket flight

Given the designated callsign of Sunshine, Gayle King stepped out of the capsule and raised her hands toward the heavens before kneeling to kiss terra firma in appreciation and gave thanks to Jesus.

"What happened to us was not a ride; this was a bona fide friggin' flight," King said in a post-flight interview. "We were so well prepared. Every noise we heard, we knew. The flight instructor said that I am her best success story. Why? Because she's never had somebody go through the course who's terrified of flying. Everybody who's gone through the course is somebody that it's been a life-long dream — they've wanted to do it. So she said I'm her best success story. I'm so proud of me right now. I still can’t believe it."

Catching her breath for a beat, King reflected more on her heightened state of mind and personal thoughts when looking back at our fragile world from space.

"It's oddly quiet when you get up there; it's really quiet and peaceful," she noted. "And you look down at the planet and you think, 'That’s where we came from?' To me, it's such a reminder about how we need to do better, be better human beings. It's so nasty and so vitriolic nowadays. If everybody could experience that peace that we had up there, and the kindness, and what it takes to do what we did, all the people it took to get us up there and get us back safely — I'll never ever forget."

For those unaccustomed to navigating one’s body in zero gravity, it's nowhere near as simple as it looks, as King can attest.

"I looked like a friggin' moose getting into the chair," she recalled. "Just let me get in the chair! Let me get the seatbelt on! It's very difficult because you're floating."

Confronting and overcoming mortal fears while embarking on this Blue Origin training regimen and suborbital flight was a life-changing event for the veteran journalist, and lessons learned will extend to her life back on Earth moving forward, where she feels she can now take on anything.

"I'm very glad I did it," she shared. "I have no regrets about doing it. I'm stepping way out of my comfort zone, because this so not like me. I might now get my ears pierced! I've always been afraid."

On April 14, 2025, Blue Origin launched its 11th human spaceflight, the company's first to include only women aboard. Based on the seat assignments provided by the company, one of the six newly qualified astronauts has now become the 100th person in history to fly only a suborbital trajectory to space and back.

What is it?

The photo captures the moment that former NASA aerospace engineer-turned-entrepreneur Aisha Bowe stepped out of Blue Origin's New Shepard capsule, having completed the 10-minute trip into space and back. She held out her arms in celebration.

Flying alongside five other women, including pop star Katy Perry and TV morning show host Gayle King, Bowe soared past the Karman line, the boundary at 62 miles (100 kilometers) that is internationally recognized as the demarcation between Earth's atmosphere and outer space.

Where is it?

Bowe and her crewmates landed in West Texas, not far from where they took off from Blue Origin's Launch Site One, located near the town of Van Horn.

The booster that lofted the New Shepard crew capsule into space also returned to the same site, re-igniting its engine and landing on extended legs to be reused again.

Why is it amazing?

The namesake for Blue Origin's New Shepard launch system, Alan Shepard, was the first American in space and the first person to complete a suborbital spaceflight. His May 5, 1961 Mercury-Redstone 3 launch aboard the Freedom 7 capsule ended in a splashdown in The Bahamas, from where Bowe's family originates.

Shepard later walked on the moon on Apollo 14, so is not included in the 100-person count, but included among Bowe's ranks are X-15 and SpaceShipOne rocket plane pilots and the people who earlier flew on Blue Origin's and Virgin Galactic's space tourism and suborbital science-dedicated flights.

Want to know more?

You can read more about Bowe's NS-31 mission and the items that she and her crewmates chose to fly as souvenirs of their journey. You can also read and watch the crew's reaction immediately after returning to Earth.

Blue Origin just launched pop star Katy Perry and five other women on the first manned rocket launch without a man on board since 1963.

A New Shepard rocket lifted off with Blue Origin's NS-31 mission Monday morning (April 14), completing the company's 31st launch overall and 11th crewed suborbital spaceflight. New Shepard launched with Blue Origin's "RSS Kármán Line" space capsule, carrying Perry alongside crew members Gayle King, Lauren Sánchez, Aisha Bowe, Kerianne Flynn and Amanda Nguyen.

Liftoff occurred at 9:30 a.m. EDT (1330 GMT) from Blue Origin's Launch Site One in West Texas. The whole flight lasted about 10.5 minutes, which offered the NS-31 passengers about four minutes of weightlessness as their capsule arced above the Kármán line — the internationally recognized "boundary" of space that resides at an altitude of 62 miles (100 kilometers). Though their time in space was short, all six stepped away from the experience feeling a serene sense of awe and humble amazement. "It is the highest high, and it is surrender to the unknown, trust," Perry said after landing.

In post-landing interviews with Charissa Thompson for Blue Origin after the crew exited their space capsule, each NS-31 crew member spoke about how profound a journey the launch was, and the deeper connection they now feel to Earth and humanity.

Sánchez led the NS-31 mission. She is an author and journalist with anchor experience at several news stations, as well as the recipient of an Emmy award in 1999. She is a licensed helicopter pilot and founded the first female-owned and operated aerial film and production company. Sánchez has been engaged Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos since 2016.

Sánchez also reflected on the rocket launch of Alan Shepard — the first American to fly in space — which, like NS-31, also flew a short but impactful suborbital mission.

Amanda Nguyễn made history aboard NS-31 by becoming the first Vietnamese and Southeast Asian woman to fly to space. She is a bioastronautics research scientist with a degree from Harvard University, and a resume that includes work with the International Institute for Astronautical Sciences and NASA. Nguyễn recently authored a book, "Saving Five: A Memoir of Hope," about her experience as a survivor of sexual assault, and she hopes her spaceflight can be an inspiration to other survivors striving to realize their own dreams.

Each crew member brought an assortment of small items with them to space, including individual "zero-g indicators," which are used to signal that a spacecraft has reached microgravity when they begin floating around the cabin. Nguyễn brought two zero-g indicators: a piece of paper with a promise she had written to herself after her sexual assault, and another item she said she wasn't originally sure if she would bring or not.

"It's the hospital band from the day it happened," Nguyễn said. "I got to honor her today," she added, referring to her past self.

Kerianne Flynn is a film producer known for the movies such as "This Changes Everything" (2018) and "LILLY" (2024), which showcase her passion for storytelling and community-building. Flynn has spent much of the past decade focused on her nonprofit work with The Allen-Stevenson School, The High Line, and Hudson River Park, according to her bio on Blue Origin's website.

She carried a feather to space, symbolic of Blue Origin, gifted to her by friends before her flight. "It felt so special to have it close to my heart and in space with me," she said. "I feel like it helped me take all of them with me on this journey."

Gayle King is most known for her prolific career in journalism and as co-host of the TV show "CBS Mornings." King was invited to the flight by Sánchez, which she says took her far out of her comfort zone. King has an outspoken fear of flying, and doesn't have her ears pierced for fear of the pain.

King said her fears were eased because the NS-31 crew was "set up for success."

"The training was so freaking good," King said. "It went exactly as they told us."

Aisha Bowe is a former NASA rocket scientist with degrees in aerospace and space systems engineering. She is CEO of STEMBoard, founded LINGO, a STEM education technology company, and is a member of the National Society of Black Engineers and the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics.

"I picked the right dream," Bowe said after her spaceflight. "I'm ready to go back."

Finally, Katy Perry has officially lived up to her hit single, "Firework," and showed us what she's worth by literally shooting across the sky — just as she told all of us to do. The pop star was the last to be interviewed after the NS-31 capsule touchdown, and was very reticent for the spotlight of the mission to fall on her.

She said her spaceflight now ranks as the second most incredible experience of her lifetime — the first being the birth of her daughter. Perry said her daughter is one of the reasons she ultimately decided to join the NS-31 crew. "I wanted to model courage and worthiness and fearlessness."

As one of her personal items, Perry brought a daisy, which she held up high after exiting the New Shepard capsule. Daisy is the name of Perry's daughter.

"Daisies are common flowers, but they grow through any condition. They grow through cement, they grow through cracks, they grow through walls. They are resilient. They are powerful. They are strong. They are everywhere. Flowers are, to me, God's smile, but it's also a reminder of our beautiful Earth and the flowers here, and God's smile and the beautiful magic that is everywhere, all around us, and even in a simple daisy."

Amanda Nguyễn stepped out of a windowed white capsule in the West Texas desert on Monday (April 14), placed her hands firmly on her chest, then punched them toward the sky, beaming with joy. Having just flown beyond the Kármán line — recognized as the division between Earth and the rest of the universe — she'd just become the first Vietnamese woman to fly to space. She'd also just closed the loop on a dream she paused for 10 years to advocate for civil rights, keeping a promise to her younger self that she would "return to her."

Before that 10-year pause, Nguyễn was a student at Harvard University in pursuit of a career at either NASA or the CIA. She'd been studying astrophysics at the college, had worked on NASA's last space shuttle mission and had previously helped the agency develop its Kepler exoplanet-hunting space telescope. Then, in 2013, during her senior year, she was raped at a frat party.

While dealing with her own emotions in the aftermath of her sexual assault, Nguyễn also began to uncover serious lapses in the justice system designed to support survivors so they can press charges. She eventually found herself at a crossroads between pivoting her journey toward the fight for sexual assault survivor rights — harnessing her own experience as a powerful medium of advocacy — or continuing on the path toward her scientific dreams. She chose the former, and indeed achieved great things.

She is credited, for instance, with the passing of the Sexual Assault Survivors' Bill of Rights Act, which entitles survivors to free medical exams, mandates that forensic evidence be kept for at least the statute of limitations on rape, and provides the option of extending that timeline in certain circumstances. Because of this accomplishment, she was also a nominee for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2019.

And, as of April 14, Nguyễn managed to choose her latter dream as well.

"In this moment, I just want all survivors to know: You can heal. No dream is too wild, and if it's so wild and out there — like going to space — you can absolutely make it through, and it can absolutely be possible," she said during an interview conducted immediately post-flight.

During the flight, Nguyễn's carefully chosen zero-G indicator — in reference to the object that astronauts bring to space to indicate when microgravity conditions begin — would have poetically floated around the capsule. It was a note she'd written to herself years ago, promising that, if she were to pause her astronaut dreams and fight for civil rights, "one day I would return to her."

Nguyễn also brought a second zero-G indicator that she was on the fence about, she says. It's her hospital band from when she was given a rape kit after her sexual assault. "I ended up bringing it," she said. "I got to honor her today."

As she said prior to her flight: "This journey really is about healing."

Nguyễn, who is also a bioastronautics research scientist, brought a few in-orbit projects to conduct during the 10.5-minute flight as well.

One of those experiments involves testing material for wound dressing in microgravity; Nguyễn has said that the results of this experiment could have applications for women's health in space. Better absorption technology in microgravity conditions would make it possible for engineers to create space-friendly pads or tampons for women astronauts who menstruate. It is especially pertinent, seeing as Nguyễn's Blue Origin mission was the first spaceflight in 60 years to not have a man on board. (Her crewmates were former NASA rocket scientist Aisha Bowe, filmmaker Kerianne Flynn, journalist Gayle King, pop star Katy Perry and journalist and author Lauren Sánchez, who is the fiancee of Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos.)

"Historically, NASA barred women from becoming astronauts, and one of the reasons they cited the most was menstruation," Nguyễn told The Guardian. "That's why I’m doing it."

Nguyễn also brought to space some smart materials getting tested for next-gen spacesuits and a wearable ultrasound patch, both engineered by researchers at MIT, where she used to be a Media Lab Director's Fellow.

There was a time, back in 2013, when Nguyễn chose to "delay her justice" because she wanted to fight for her career, she told NPR before the flight. As someone who wished to work for a government agency — and as someone who once worked as a White House intern who had already gone through government application processes — Nguyễn knew it was seen as a complication to be part of a court case in progress.

That's why she says she originally decided to risk having her rape kit evidence destroyed after six months — the rule she successfully overturned during her civil rights campaign — in order to bring a neater resume to future employers. This decision changed, as she says, when she later put a pause on her career to dedicate her time to helping other survivors of sexual assault.

In a cosmic way, the story has now come together for Nguyễn — emphasizing a message she hopes to send to all survivors who may find themselves at a similar crossroads.

"Never, never give up," it says on her zero-G indicator promise.

Katy Perry says her brief trip to the final frontier changed her in significant ways.

The pop star and five other women launched to suborbital space with Blue Origin this morning (April 14) from West Texas, performing the first all-female spaceflight since the Soviet Union's Valentina Tereshkova journeyed to Earth orbit in 1963.

Today's flight — known as NS-31, because it was the 31st overall mission of Blue Origin's New Shepard vehicle — lasted less than 11 minutes. But that was enough time for some pretty big feelings to flood into Perry.

"I feel super connected to love," Perry said shortly after emerging from the New Shepard crew capsule, in an interview that was part of Blue Origin's mission webcast.

"I think this experience has shown me you never know how much love is inside of you — how much love you have to give and how loved you are — until the day of launch," she added.

Related: Katy Perry and Gayle King launch to space with 4 others on historic all-female Blue Origin rocket flight

During the post-landing interview in the West Texas desert, conducted by Fox Sports' Charissa Thompson, Perry held a daisy up to the sky. It makes sense that she took that flower with her on the flight; Perry's 4-year-old daughter, with actor Orlando Bloom, is named Daisy. But there was some additional meaning, Perry explained.

"Daisies are common flowers, but they grow through any condition," she told Thompson. "They grow through cement. They grow through cracks. They grow through walls. They are resilient; powerful. They are strong. They're everywhere."

These flowers are "a reminder of our beautiful Earth," as well as "the beautiful magic that is everywhere, all around us, even in a simple daisy," Perry added.

Taking the flower up on NS-31 therefore was a tribute not just to her daughter but to our home planet, and a nod to its fragility as well — a reminder "to appreciate it and remember it, take care of it and protect it," she said.

A similar spirit animated Perry to sing part of "What a Wonderful World" — originally and most famously performed by Louis Armstrong — after the NS-31 mission reached space. (We don't have footage of this in-space performance yet, but NS-31 crewmate Gayle King revealed that it took place during her own post-flight interview.)

"It's not about me; it's not about singing my songs. It's about a collective energy in there," Perry told Thompson. "It's about us. It's about making space for future woman and taking up space and belonging. And it's about this wonderful world that we see right out there and appreciating it. This is all for the benefit of Earth."

Perry also said that she revealed the set list for her upcoming tour during the flight — something that we may see later, if Blue Origin releases footage from New Shepard's interior.

Perry suggested that her participation on NS-31 seemed almost preordained. She told Thompson about a conversation she had with her "angels" while deciding whether or not to fly with Blue Origin, which was founded by Amazon's Jeff Bezos.

"And they're like, 'Well, here's the feather [Blue Origin's symbol], which is what your mother calls you. And if that's not enough, the capsule is named Tortoise, which is the second nickname that your mother calls you,'" Perry said. "I'm like, 'OK, I'm going, I'm going — I got the message, and I'm going to get the message.'"

Her angels were apparently on the money, because Perry said her flight was amazing: "Ten out of 10 — that's my review."

"I couldn't recommend this experience more," she added, describing it as "second to being a mom."

And Perry's daughter got to see her mom fly to space today: Daisy was there for the launch, as was Bloom.

A flag that flew to the moon, a cookie from Cookie Monster and the set list for an upcoming music tour are now all space artifacts, having briefly left the planet with pop star Katy Perry, TV morning show host Gayle King and four more women on Monday (April 14).

The newly created space souvenirs and their newly qualified astronaut owners were part of Blue Origin's 11th human — and first all-female — flight on its New Shepard rocket.

In addition to Perry and King, the NS-31 crew included former NASA aerospace engineer and entrepreneur Aisha Bowe; research scientist and now first Vietnamese woman in space Amanda Nguyen; film producer Kerianne Flynn; and journalist Lauren Sánchez, who is engaged to Blue Origin's founder, Jeff Bezos.

As on all of Blue Origin's New Shepard flights, each of the NS-31 crew members were invited to fill a small, blue "personal payload bag" with items that they wanted to fly and have "space-certified," so long as the contents did not weigh more than 3 pounds (1.4 kilograms) in total.

"They ask that you pack light," said King in a video she recorded for Oprah Daily, "and it takes on a whole new meaning, as you might imagine, in zero gravity."

Related: Katy Perry and Gayle King launch to space with 4 others on historic all-female Blue Origin rocket flight

Brighter than the moon (moon, moon)

The NS-31 flight lifted off on Monday at 9:30 a.m. EDT (1330 GMT; 8:30 a.m. CDT local time) from Blue Origin's West Texas launch site, located near the town of Van Horn. The suborbital flight sent the New Shepard crew above the Kármán line, the 62-mile-high (100-kilometer) internationally recognized border between Earth and space, and the six women experienced about four minutes of weightlessness while seeing the curvature of our planet and blackness of the universe.

About 10 minutes after its launch, the New Shepard capsule touched down under parachutes and on a last-second cushion of air.

"I know it is going to be an important moment for the future of commercial space travel and for humanity in general and women all around," said Perry in a pre-flight interview with the Associated Press. "I'm honored to be invited and included with this incredible group of women."

Represented by the illustration of a firework on the NS-31 crew mission patch (a nod to her 2010 hit song by the same name), Perry said she is bringing bracelets that represent the pillars of her Firework Foundation.

"I'm bringing almost 300 of them so that I can bring them back home for the sixth, seventh and eighth graders that are coming to Camp Firework," said Perry in an interview with Blue Origin. "It's really for those kids, to inspire them as well, to never put limitations on their dreams."

Perry is also bringing a "real life daisy" as a reminder that "Earth is very precious." (Perry's four-year-old daughter is also named Daisy.) And she is bringing something for her fans.

"I'm also launching a tour on April 23 in Mexico, and I'll be on tour for the rest of the year," Perry said. "And I think it would be pretty cool to reveal my set list for that tour from space."

Related: Blue Origin: Everything you need to know about the private spaceflight company

Together with her five crewmates, Perry also decorated a postcard as part of a program run by Blue Origin's nonprofit organization, Club For the Future, which has collected and flown hundreds of thousands of postcards — mostly from children with their hand-drawn visions of what the future will look like — which are then stamped post-flight as having been to space and returned to their senders.

"I'm also partnering with Blue Origin and the Club For The Future program and have been traveling around for the last year and a half collecting dreams from kids all around the world," said Bowe, who is of Bahamian heritage. "So kids in India, Kenya, France and The Bahamas are going to get their postcard from space back. Even the prime minister of The Bahamas wrote a postcard."

Bowe also carried a small ramekin of dehydrated conch chowder, which, she said, is the national dish of The Bahamas.

In addition, Bowe flew one of the five American flags that the late Charles "Pete" Conrad took with him to the moon on Apollo 12, NASA's second lunar landing mission, in November 1969. The small stars and stripes nylon banner is on loan from The Museum of Flight in Seattle, Washington, where it has been on display since 2017 as part of an Apollo exhibit.

"I had the honor of meeting Pete's wife, Nancy, my first day of work at NASA," said Bowe. "She became a mentor to me and as a powerful symbol of the present, the past and the future of space exploration."

Brought to you by the numbers 3, 2 and 1

Sesame Street was well represented among the NS-31 mementos. King flew her grandson's favorite doll, a toy version of the muppet "Tamir" who joined the show in 2020 to discuss feelings about racism.

"He's a member of Sesame Street, and Lucas said I could bring Tamir with me into space," King said.

Elmo and Cookie Monster gave Nguyen items to fly after interviewing her at this year's South by Southwest (SXSW) conference. She has a couple of Polaroid photos of her with the red furry muppet and a chocolate chip cookie from the blue monster.

"I love you, too, Elmo and Cookie Monster! I hope the cookie survives the G-forces," Nguyen wrote on Instagram.

Nguyen also brought shells from the island where her mother was a refugee and a personal patch designed by a Vietnamese friend whose family were also refugees.

"This is the personal DNA of my flight — from mom's refugee boat, to dad's C-130, to the New Shepard space crew capsule," she wrote. "Came on boats, and now we're on spaceships."

In addition to flying something for her grandson, King packed a family photo and a locket holding photos of her son and daughter. The latter was a gift from actress and talk show host Drew Barrymore.

She also flew a charm bracelet that was made for her by the 10-year-old daughter of one of her "CBS Mornings" coworkers.

"'These are all the planets, and there's an astronaut,'" King said, describing what she was told about the charms. "And she said, 'Gayle, that's you.'"

'Fly'-ing to space and back

Bowe, Nguyen and Sánchez chose to bring small science kits on the flight. Bowe partnered with Winston-Salem State University's astrobotany lab to study the response of crop plants to molecular stress. Nguyen launched swatches from a countermeasure biosuit and a wearable ultrasound patch for MIT's Media Lab. And Sánchez worked with the nonprofit organization Teachers in Space to collect flight data during the launch.

Sánchez also packed "Flynn," a plush toy bug (rather than her NS-31 crewmate, Kerianne Flynn).

"I wrote a children's book ["The Fly Who Flew to Space"] about a little dyslexic fly named Flynn who accidentally gets stuck in a rocket and sees the world and comes back a completely different fly," Sánchez told Elle magazine.

Beyond that and like Perry, the six women decided to keep some of the items they flew private — at least for now.

"I can't wait to touch down on Earth and share what we we bring back with the world," said Flynn.

Follow collectSPACE.com on Facebook and on X at @collectSPACE. Copyright 2025 collectSPACE.com. All rights reserved.

Blue Origin and Katy Perry just made history.

Jeff Bezos' aerospace company launched its NS-31 mission today (April 14), sending the pop star and her five female crewmates on a brief mission to suborbital space. Liftoff occurred at 9:30 a.m. EDT (1330 GMT) from Blue Origin's West Texas launch site.

It was the first all-female spaceflight since June 16, 1963, when the Soviet Union's Valentina Tereshkova launched on a three-day mission to Earth orbit. Tereshkova flew by herself, however, so NS-31 was the first-ever multiperson human spaceflight not to feature a male crewmember.

On board were Perry, one of the best-selling pop stars of all time; Gayle King, co-host of the TV show "CBS Mornings"; former NASA rocket scientist Aisha Bowe, the founder and CEO of the technology company STEMBoard; filmmaker Kerianne Flynn; bioastronautics researcher, author and Nobel Peace Prize nominee Amanda Nguyen, who became the first Vietnamese woman in space; and journalist and author Lauren Sánchez, who is also Bezos' fiancee. Sánchez organized the flight.

Perry took a daisy flower to space with her in honor of her 4-year-old daughter. In a Blue Origin interview before launch, she teared up when thinking about her family.

"The message to my family is that I love them so much, and I'm so full of love, and I am so grateful to be representing a fearless female in my family," Perry said.

Oprah Winfrey, King's longtime friend, watched the launch with King's family.

"I've never been more proud of my friend than today. Never been more proud because this is bigger than just going to space," Winfrey said. "There's only one time that all the women are going up for the first time. You know, there will be other trips, but there's only one first time."

"Oh my God, that was amazing," King said as she hugged Bezos after landing. She kneeled on the ground and put her head to the Earth as she left the capsule.

NS-31 began when New Shepard lifted off the pad at Blue Origin's launch site in West Texas, about 30 miles (48 kilometers) north of Van Horn. It cruised above the 62-mile-high (100 km) Kármán Line, which most authorities recognize as the boundary of outer space (though there is some debate).

Perry and crew experienced a few minutes of weightlessness and got to see Earth against the blackness of space.

The six women sounded jubilant througout the flight, with cheers and screams as they landed.

"Look at the moon!" one crewmember said as they reached space.

"Oh my God, that's our pink moon!" what sounded like Perry replied.

'Wow!'

But it was all over quickly: The New Shepard crew capsule touched down under parachutes about 10.5 minutes after launch today, sending a cloud of dust billowing into the West Texas sky.

The New Shepard booster returned a few minutes earlier, making a vertical, powered touchdown on its landing pad as planned about 7.5 minutes after launch.

Perry held the daisy she took to space to the sky after leaving the capsule and kissed the ground after exiting.

It was the 31st overall mission of Blue Origin's reusable New Shepard vehicle — hence the name — and the 11th to carry crew. (The others have been uncrewed research flights.)

Related: Blue Origin: Everything you need to know about the private spaceflight company

Each crewmember put a little of herself into the NS-31 mission patch. For example, a small scale symbolizes Nguyen's advocacy for civil rights and social change, and an exploding firework represents Perry's "global influence across music, pop culture and philanthropy," according to Blue Origin.

"Firework," of course, also happens to be one of Perry's best-known songs. Perry said she was taking abotu 300 wristbands for the children of a camp she and her sister run, as well as a daisy flower in honor of her young daughter Daisy.

Perry may now be the most famous person ever to fly to space. (Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin are certainly contenders, but they're in a different category, having gained their fame from their spaceflight.)

She's not the first celebrity that Blue Origin has sent to the final frontier, however: Actor William Shatner, NFL Hall of Famer Michael Strahan and Bezos himself have all ridden New Shepard to and from suborbital space.

In fact, Bezos flew on New Shepard's first-ever crewed mission, which launched on July 20, 2021 — the 52nd anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing.

Lauren Sánchez, the journalist and author who organized the flight (she's also fiancee of Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos), recruited designer Monse to reimagine Blue Origin's flight suits.

"I think the suits are elegant, but they also bring a little spice to space," Sánchez told the New York Times. Perry and Sanchez will launch on Blue Origin's New Shepard suborbital rocket on Monday (April 14) along with "CBS Mornings" co-host Gayle King, bioastronautics research scientist and activist Amanda Nguyen, former NASA rocket scientist Aisha Bowe and film producer Kerianne Flynn.

Blue Origin's polyester flights suits are blue with some black highlights around the knees, elbows, shoulders and torso.

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

The Monse Blue Origin flight suits are sleeker and made of "flame-resistant stretch neoprene," per the Times. They do away with shoulder pads and black highlights on the arms and legs. They were designed by Monse co-founders Fernando Garcia and Laura Kim, who designed her 2024 Met Gala outfit, according to the Times. Blue Origin shared a crew photo in the suits on April 12.

"Simplicity was important, and comfort, and fit," Garcia told the Times. "But we also wanted something that was a little dangerous, like a motocross outfit. Or a ski suit. Flattering and sexy."

King reportedly said the suits were "professional and feminine at the same time," according to the Times.

Blue Origin's all-female crew will fly from the West Texas Launch Site One at 9:30 a.m. EDT (1330 GMT) on Monday. You can watch the Blue Origin all-female crew launch on Space.com, courtesy of Blue Origin, at 8 a.m. EDT (1200 GMT).

Case in point: Pop star Katy Perry and journalist Gayle King are part of Blue Origin's upcoming all-female spaceflight, which is set to launch on Monday (April 14). That mission, known as NS-31, also includes Aisha Bowe, Kerianne Flynn, Amanda Nguyen and Lauren Sánchez (the partner of Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos), all of them notable figures in their own right.

Here's a look at the other well-known people that Blue Origin has launched to suborbital space aboard its New Shepard suborbital vehicle, on brief missions that have all added to the evolving nature of space tourism.

Jeff Bezos and Wally Funk

It all began with Blue Origin's inaugural human spaceflight on July 20, 2021. Bezos himself took a seat on New Shepard's NS-16 mission, fulfilling a lifelong dream and marking the dawn of his company's space tourism era.

Joining him on that historic flight was female aviation pioneer Wally Funk, whose journey was decades in the making after being denied the opportunity to go to space in the 1960s. (Bezos' brother Jeff and Dutch student Oliver Daemen were the other crewmates on NS-16.)

William Shatner

At 90 years old, legendary "Star Trek" actor William Shatner became the oldest person to fly to space aboard NS-18 on Oct. 13, 2021, wresting the title from the 82-year-old Funk. The flight was a full-circle moment, as the man who famously portrayed Captain Kirk finally experienced space for real. Upon his return, Shatner shared an emotional reflection on Earth's fragility.

Michael Strahan

Television personality and former NFL star Michael Strahan was a member of Blue Origin's first six-person crew (NS-19), which flew to space on Dec. 11, 2021. Strahan played for the New York Giants from 1993 to 2007 and was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2014, the same year he joined "Good Morning America" as a co-host.

Strahan brought a football with him on NS-19 that was later put in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

Coby Cotton

YouTube star Coby Cotton of Dude Perfect fame took his trick-shot skills to a whole new altitude aboard NS-22 on Aug. 4, 2022. His flight marked a new era for influencer involvement in space travel, engaging a younger audience with the possibilities of space.

Ed Dwight

More than six decades after initially being selected as the United States' first Black astronaut candidate (via a U.S. Air Force training program, which didn't turn into a NASA post), 90-year-old Ed Dwight joined the crew of NS-25, which launched on May 19, 2024. Dwight, a former U.S. Air Force captain, subsequently became a sculptor well known for his contributions to art and history.

Emily Calandrelli

A longtime advocate for science communication and space education, Emily Calandrelli — host of the TV series "Emily's Wonder Lab" and a former MIT engineer — flew on NS-28 on Nov. 22, 2024, becoming the 100th woman to fly to space.

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.

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.

Blue Origin will launch its eleventh crewed flight on April 14, with pop star Katy Perry strapping into the New Shepard space capsule alongside five other passengers, all of them women. The mission, NS-31, will be the first all-female crew since the Soviet Union's Valentina Tereshkova became the first woman in space during a solo flight in 1963.

"Im really excited about the engineering of it all," Perry told the Associated Press, adding that she's been listening to Carl Sagan's "Cosmos" and reading about string theory. "I've always been interested astrophysics and interested in astronomy and astrology and the stars." You can watch Blue Origin's Katy Perry launch on Space.com and our YouTube channel.

Joining Perry on the Blue Origin launch will be "CBS Mornings" co-host Gayle King, bioastronautics research scientist Amanda Nguyen, STEMBoard CEO and former NASA rocket scientist Aisha Bowe, filmmaker Kerianne Flynn and mission leader Lauren Sánchez, the fiancee of Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos.

Blue Origin will launch Perry and crew from the company's Launch Site One, in West Texas, Monday morning. It will fly a suborbital trajectory that will give its crew several minutes of weightless to float around. Their New Shepard will land under parachutes on the desert floor to end the trip. The whole ride will take about 10 minutes.

"I feel like we are all made of stardust and we all come from the stars, and it will be exciting to see them twinkle from that site," Perry told the AP. "And also have an appreciation for Mother Earth when we see it in that way."

A livestream of the New Shepard launch will begin 90 minutes before liftoff, on Blue Origin's website. It will also be simulcast on the Blue Origin YouTube and X accounts.

Blue Origin's eleventh space tourism launch carries a crew that features some notable celebrities, and you can watch the mission live here at Space.com.

The 31st overall mission of Blue Origin's New Shepard suborbital vehicle (known as NS-31) will launch a six women — the first all-female space crew since the Soviet Union's Valentina Tereshkova became the first woman to fly in space during a solo mission to orbit in 1963. The NS-31 crew are pop star Katy Perry, "CBS Mornings" co-host Gayle King, author and bioastronautics research scientist Amanda Nguyen, STEMBoard CEO and former NASA rocket scientist Aisha Bowe, film producer Kerianne Flynn and mission leader Lauren Sánchez, who is the partner of Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos.

Blue Origin is targeting 9:30 a.m. EDT (1330 GMT) on Monday (April 14) for liftoff of NS-31 from the company's Launch Site One, about 30 miles (50 kilometers) north of Van Horn, Texas. A livestream of the New Shepard launch will be available on Blue Origin's website 90 minutes before liftoff, and it will be simulcast on YouTube and the Blue Origin X account. The broadcast will also be carried at the top of this page as well as the Space.com homepage and YouTube channel.

The flight will last a little more than 10 minutes from liftoff to the soft, parachute-aided touchdown of the NS-31 crew capsule downrange in the Texas desert. Between engine ignition and landing, the NS-31 flight will go through about 10 major milestones.

The New Shepard booster will separate from the crew capsule 2 minutes and 40 seconds after liftoff. From there, the capsule will continue on a trajectory arc reaching above an altitude of 62 miles (100 kilometers) — the internationally recognized "boundary" of space known as the Kármán line.

The NS-31 crew will experience several minutes of weightlessness while soaking in views of Earth through the capsule's very large, 3.6-foot (1.1-meter) windows. As the crew enjoys floating around the capsule, the 60-foot-tall (18 m) New Shepard booster will use a set of aerobrakes to control its descent before reigniting its engine for a controlled touchdown on the Blue Origin landing pad, 2 miles (3.2 km) north of the launch site.

Minutes later, the New Shepard capsule will begin its descent back to Earth, deploying a set of drogue parachutes and main parachutes that will enable a soft desert landing 10 to 11 minutes after liftoff.

Blue Origin's launch window for the NS-31 mission opens at 9:30 a.m. EDT (1330 GMT), but the company may push later into the morning if there are any launch delays. Historically, New Shepard launches have been pushed up to an hour or more, as a result of issues with the launch vehicle or ground infrastructure.

In the event of a delay prior to the start of Blue Origin's livestream, the broadcast will be similarly delayed to begin about 90 minutes ahead of a new T-0 launch target.

Blue Origin is gearing up for its most star-studded mission to date.

A crew of six women, all of varying celebrity, are slated to ride Blue Origin's New Shepard rocket on a suborbital flight to the edge of space and back. The mission, NS-31, is scheduled to lift off Monday morning (April 14) from the company's launch facilities in West Texas.

A livestream of the NS-31 launch will be available on Space.com, via Blue Origin, and also on the company's website. The broadcast is expected to begin 90 minutes before liftoff.

What time is Blue Origin's NS-31 launch?

Blue Origin is targeting Monday (April 14) for the New Shepard launch. Liftoff is scheduled for 9:30 a.m. EDT (1330 GMT). The launch will take place from the company's Launch Site One, about 30 miles (50 kilometers) north of Van Horn, Texas.

Delays due to weather, or issues with rocket hardware or launch infrastructure could push the liftoff back into the launch window, which has the potential to extend up to an hour or more. If the launch time shifts before the beginning of Blue Origin's livestream, the start of the launch broadcast will likely shift accordingly.

Can I watch the Blue Origin launch online?

Yes, the Blue Origin NS-31 New Shepard rocket launch will be available to watch online.

Blue Origin will provide a livestream of the New Shepard launch on its website BlueOrigin.com 90 minutes before liftoff. The company typically simulcasts that stream to its YouTube page and X account, and it will also be carried on Space.com. Space.com's YouTube channel will also carry the feed.

Who is launching on NS-31?

The NS-31 crew is led by Lauren Sánchez — partner of Blue Origin's billionaire founder Jeff Bezos. Also flying are pop-star singer Katy Perry — most notably known, in this case, for her hit single "Firework" — author and bioastronautics research scientist Amanda Nguyen, STEMBoard CEO and former NASA rocket scientist Aisha Bowe, film producer Kerianne Flynn and "CBS Mornings" co-host journalist Gayle King.

The sextet will be shattering the ceiling to space, so to speak, by blasting off on the first mission to launch an all-female crew into the final frontier. That is, of course, not to discredit the Soviet Union's Valentina Tereshkova, who flew a solo mission as the first woman in space in 1963.

How long is Blue Origin's NS-31 New Shepard launch?

Blue Origin's flight plan for its New Shepard rocket typically follows the same course every launch.

New Shepard will lift off at T-0, carrying its passengers at increasing speeds away from the launch pad and into the Texas sky. The rocket will reach up to three times the speed of sound before separating from its crew capsule at T+2:40.

The capsule will coast on a trajectory that will arc above the 62-mile (100-kilometer) high, internationally recognized "boundary" of space known as the Kármán line. There, the NS-31 crew will get to experience a few minutes of weightlessness before beginning a descent back to the ground.

The New Shepard booster is expected to return to Earth for a vertical landing on a pad near its launch site in West Texas about 7.5 minutes after liftoff, while the capsule and crew will parachute down for a soft landing a few minutes later. In total, the mission will last about 11 minutes from liftoff to capsule landing.

Jasleen Chana is a PhD candidate at UCL in the department of Science and Technology Studies.

For the first time since Russian cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova’s solo flight in 1963, a spacecraft will fly with only women aboard. Blue Origin’s all-female spaceflight crew, which includes pop star Katy Perry, is set to take off this spring.

Jeff Bezos’ crew is assembled from successful and well-known women, also including television presenter Gayle King, producer Kerianne Flynn, former NASA scientist Aisha Bowe, civil rights activist Amanda Nguyen and journalist Lauren Sanchez. Promotional material for the flight claims that Perry “hopes her journey encourages her daughter and others to reach for the stars, literally and figuratively.”

The glamorous optics of this spaceflight are supposedly designed to encourage women to strive for their dreams. The glossy narrative tells others that they can be just like these extraordinary women. Yet, behind this aspirational ideal, there is a more problematic story regarding successful women in science and their roles in public.

My PhD research examines memoirs written by women astronauts. They construct appealing depictions of women who are successful and exceptional. But in practice, their success stories are nigh on impossible for ordinary women to emulate.

Related: Meet the crew for Blue Origin's upcoming all-female spaceflight with Katy Perry

This is epitomized in astronaut Catherine Coleman’s reaction to wearing a spacesuit designed for men. In her 2024 memoir, she wrote: "Most of the time, I took the approach that if the suit didn’t fit, I would simply wear it anyway — and wear it well. Wear it better than anyone expected."

As this quote shows, women who have travelled to space tend to construct themselves as having worked exceptionally hard to deny the norms of what is expected of them and to offset systemic biases.

From the outset of her memoir, Coleman emphasizes that she’s always had to be an "exception" from the rest of humanity, which feels alienating. But she also consistently suggests that her life was destined to be this way. "Space felt like home to me," she says, tacitly acknowledging that she was always meant to be there.

Mae Jemison, who was the first African American woman in space, also expresses this sense of destiny in her 2001 memoir. “I perched quietly, looking out of the windows on the flight deck,” she writes. “Strange, but I always knew I’d be here. Looking down and all around me, seeing the Earth, the moon, and the stars, I just felt like I belonged.”

The crew set to board the Blue Origin flight want to be storytellers in the same way that women astronauts are in their memoirs. But the well-known members of its crew are a reminder that hard work is only part of this particular story — fortune and privilege also play a part.

Eileen Collins was the first woman to pilot and command a space shuttle. In her 2021 memoir, she details the pressures and expectations of working in a male-dominated field. She found that it exacerbated already tricky decision-making and the need to perform critical actions correctly.

When she says "current and future women pilots are counting on me to do a perfect job up here," she exemplifies the harsh scrutiny that women astronauts are often subject to when they are the first of their gender.

Behind the cover

The issue with popular scientific memoirs is that they are consistently marketed as honest and truthful works. These books promise to reveal who the astronaut actually is, but they are, in fact, carefully curated images of the women they portray.

So, while they intend to motivate and inspire others, the memoirs don’t always do so in a totally honest way. This draws a parallel with the Blue Origin flight.

Many of these narratives seek to rewrite past stereotypes of scientists while also functioning as a response to the contemporary appetite for memoirs that reveal the interior emotional world of their subjects. For example, Kathryn Sullivan discusses "wrestling" with visceral "pangs" of pain at being unable to launch her mission due to technical issues.

This concept reflects why there is a fevered public expectation that the Blue Origin flight crew will embark on a perspective-shifting journey and experience "deep emotions from space".

While current coverage surrounding the launch frames it as a celebration of collective advancement, the people comprising this spaceflight crew do not reflect most women.

If the Blue Origin mission is to be a lodestar for a universal feminist narrative, using women’s spaceflight as a measure of progress, then it should also be considered in tandem with the incongruities and uniqueness of women’s experiences. Ultimately, it is important to move away from narratives that inform us that science, spaceflight and success are only synonymous with fame and exceptionalism.