The pitcher New Shepard Of Blue Origin brought today April 14, 2025 Six women (including pop star Katy Perry and the writer Lauren Sánchez) beyond the Kárman linethe internally recognized border that delimits the space to 100 km altitude. The suborbital tourist flight of the space company founded by the patron of Amazon Jeff Bezosleft at 15:30 Italian (8:30 local) from the launch site located one in the Texan desert and lasted about 11 minutesbrought to space Lauren Sánchez, Katy Perrythe film producer Kerianne Flymmmthe journalist Gayle King and scientists Amanda Nguyen And Aisha Bowe. Even if it was “only” a tourist flight, it was the first time in the story in which an entirely female crew reached the space. The only precedent was the flight of the first woman in space, the Soviet Valentina Testahkovawhich dates back to 1963two years after the primacy of Jurij Gagarin.
The flight is called NS-31that is, the 31st launch of New Shepard and the 11th with people on board. The first took place the 20 July 2021on the day of the 52nd anniversary of the first habit of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin with the Apollo 11 mission. Many of New Shepard crew flights have brought on board celebrity: Blue Origin is in fact a private company and to board New Shepard on board it is necessary to bear a very important cost (hundreds of thousands of dollars) which contributes to the financing of the company.
New Shepard – whose name is a tribute to Alan Shepardthe first American to reach the space in 1961 – is a small tonnage pitcher designed to bring scientific loads and human beings in space. At the moment it is unable to enter the terrestrial orbit but can only do Suborbital flightsthat is, with parabolic trajectory. Blue Origin is part of the commercial space transport market Made in the USAstarted by Spacex of Elon Musk And that opened because the NASA (the US government space agency) stopped bringing human beings to orbit after the end of the Shuttle program in 2011.
Unlike the launchers Falcon of Spacex, already operational for years for the transport of satellites, loads and crew for the International Space Station – not to count the Starship project currently being tested – New Shepard is a small project that seems oriented above all to spatial tourismoffering the possibility of being for a few minutes beyond the Kárman line by experimenting with the apparent absence of weight and enjoying the spectacle of the Earth seen from space through the large portholes of the capsule. Blue Origin, however, is also developing wider projects, such as the pitcher New Glennthe Lunar Lander Blue Moon and the orbital probe Blue Ring.
As we said, NS-31 was a suborbital flight. The New Shepard capsule separated from the reusable pitcher (then returned vertically) to about 2:40 from the launch, remained above the Kárman line for about 3 minutes reaching up to 107 km About height from the ground to then return to the ground about 11 minutes after the launch with the help of special parachutes.
Here you can recover the NS-31 flight by Blue Origin:
