As the latest celebrity to orbit into the heavens, Katy Perry had a blast getting rocket-ready with some space training in Texas yesterday ahead of her long-awaited rocket launch this afternoon.
The singer met with other members of the crew, including film producer Kerianne Flynn, journalist Lauren Sanchez, former NASA rocket scientist Aisha Bowe, and civil rights activist Amanda Nguyen, to fit in some final preparations before take-off.
But it wasn’t getting to grips with the technical tools of space travel that the Firework singer was focused on before the New Shepard launch at 8.30 local time (14.30 BST).
Part of her preparations was getting into the right mindset too, as she vowed to “put the ass into astronaut”‘ claiming her place on the mission was “written in the stars”.
In a video posted before take-off she wrote on Instagram the 40 year old singer said she is “always looking for little confirmations from the heavens, from my guides, from the angels, from my higher self.”
Perry, who was once married to Russell Brand, has made no secret of how excited she is about the mission, telling a reporter: “I am talking to myself every day and saying, ‘You are brave, you’re bold, you are doing this for the next generation, to inspire so many different people but especially young girls to go [to space]'”
The Blue Origin NS-31 mission is the first all-female space crew to launch into space since Russian astronaut Valentina Tereshkova’s solo flight in 1963.
Perry’s galaxy adventure saw her and the rest of the crew enjoying four minutes of weightlessness in space before the capsule was parachuted back home.
Today’s all-women mission is the eleventh human flight run by Blue Origin – a space tourism and scientific research program founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos who has taken part on one of the previous flights himself.
A total of 48 people have flown on Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket, including the company’s billionaire founder.
Today’s flight was the rocket’s 11th human flight and its first female-only mission.
Although Perry’s space adventure only lasted for 11 minutes, it might take her head a while to get back to Earth.
Overwhelmed, all she could say on her return was “I went to space,” as she beamed from ear to ear.
This was quite a contrast to her more poetic take on the rocket flight in the lead-up to the launch.
Then, she mused that she was seeing signs that her mission was meant to be in all sorts of strange coincidences.
Several days before today’s take-off, she said: “On the very front of the capsule is the outline of the shape of a feather and when I saw that it was like a total confirmation because my mum has always called me feather.
“The capsule’s name is tortoise. My mum calls me two nicknames. Feather and tortoise. What are the chances that I’m going to space on a rocket in a capsule with my symbol, the feather, called Tortoise?
Fellow crew member Lauren Sanchez has revealed that Perry sang her way through the experience, launching into her own rendition of A Wonderful World as the rocket soared through zero gravity.
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