King will step out of her comfort zone and into a spacesuit alongside pop superstar Katy Perry, journalist and philanthropist Lauren Sánchez, former NASA rocket scientist Aisha Bowe, civil rights activist Amanda Nguyen and film producer Kerianne Flynn for the 11th human flight of Blue Origin’s New Shepard program. It will be the first all-female flight crew recorded since Soviet cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova’s solo spaceflight in 1963, according to Blue Origin.
“I don’t know how to explain being terrified and excited at the same time. It’s like how I felt about to deliver a baby,” described King when she was revealed as a crew member in February.
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Here’s what to know about the upcoming expedition.
When is Blue Origin’s first all-women spaceflight?
The crew is scheduled to blast off on Monday, April 14, from Blue Origin’s Launch Site One in West Texas. The launch window opens at 9:30 a.m. ET.
How to watch Blue Origin’s women-led spaceflight
How long will Gayle King be in space?
So far, Blue Origin says it has sent 52 passengers on the approximately 11-minute-long thrill ride to space, traveling 62 miles above Earth to the Kármán line — the generally recognized point that separates the planet’s atmosphere from space.
They’ll have about four minutes of weightlessness before they head back down.
There were clear blue skies the day mountain climber Vanessa O’Brien flew to space in a New Shepard rocket in 2022.
