WASHINGTON — Blue Shepard launched six women, including a pop star and TV show host, on a suborbital flight of the company’s New Shepard vehicle April 14.
New Shepard lifted off at 9:30 a.m. Eastern from the company’s Launch Site One in West Texas after a problem-free countdown. The vehicle’s capsule, RSS Kármán Line, reached a peak altitude of 106 kilometers before landing 10 minutes and 21 seconds after liftoff.
The NS-31 mission, the company’s 11th crewed suborbital flight, flew a routine profile but with a unique complement of spaceflight participants. It was the company’s first mission to carry only women, and the first all-woman spaceflight of any kind since Valentina Tereshkova became the first woman in space on a solo flight in 1963.