BLAST OFF: Pop star Katy Perry
Image: Katy Perry/Facebook
POP star Katy Perry blasted off to the edge of space like a firework yesterday.
Perry was the grootste naam in an all-female group that touched the edge of space, roaring into the cosmos on one of billionaire Jeff Bezos' rockets.
The Firework and California Gurls singer soared 100 kilometres above the Earth's surface in a rocket from Blue Origin, the space company owned by the Amazon founder.
Five other women including Bezos' fiancee Lauren Sanchez joined the flight, which launched from western Texas at around 2.30pm on Monday.
Their fully-automated craft rose vertically before the crew capsule detaches mid-flight, later falling back to the ground slowed by parachutes and a retro rocket.
Monday's mission was the first all-female space crew since Valentina Tereshkova's historic solo flight in 1963.
It is also the 11th sub-orbital crewed operation by Blue Origin, which has offered the space tourism experiences for several years.
The company does not publicly communicate the price of trips made possible by its New Shepard rocket.
Lasting around 10 minutes, the flight takes the passengers beyond the Karman line - the internationally recognised boundary of space.
There will be a brief period when the women can unbuckle from their seats and float in zero gravity.
Perry recently told Elle magazine that she was taking part “for my daughter Daisy”, whom she shares with actor Orlando Bloom, "to inspire her to never have limits on her dreams”.
She added: “I’m just so excited to see the inspiration through her eyes and the light in her eyes when she sees that rocket go, and she goes back to school the next day and says ‘Mom went to space’.”
Perry, launched onto the international stage with her 2008 hit "I Kissed a Girl," will sit alongside Oprah Winfrey’s bestie Gayle King, film producer Kerianne Flynn, former NASA scientist Aisha Bowe and Amanda Nguyen, founder of a campaign group against sexual violence.
They follow 52 previous Blue Origin passengers, including Star Trek icon William Shatner.
Such high-profile guests are intended to keep public interest in Blue Origin's work, as it battles multiple rival firms in the space tourism field.
Bezos' top challenger in passenger flights is British billionaire Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic, which offers a similar sub-orbital experience.
But Blue Origin aims in future to bring space tourists into orbit, competing directly with Elon Musk's SpaceX.
In January, Blue Origin's much more powerful New Glenn rocket successfully completed its first unmanned orbital mission.
TO INFINITY AND BEYOND: Gayle King and Katy Perry
Image: X