Singer Katy Perry and CBS’ Gayle King will join Jeff Bezos‘ fiancee Lauren Sanchez on his rocket company Blue Origin’s next crewed mission.
The company on Thursday announced the next six-person crew of its New Shepard rocket, which also includes aerospace engineer Aisha Bowe, film producer Kerianne Flynn and Amanda Nguyen, a bioastronautics research scientist and civil rights activist. The launch is planned for this spring.
The mission will be the 11th human flight for Blue Origin’s New Shepard program. A trip on the New Shepard rocket lasts about 10 minutes. The reusable rocket carries people on a ride past the edge of space, with the spacecraft and crew floating in microgravity for a couple of minutes before returning to Earth.
Blue Origin previously sent up Bezos, its billionaire founder who also founded Amazon and owns the Washington Post, and Canadian actor William Shatner on other crewed missions. To date, New Shepard has flown 52 people into space, according to the company.
Blue Origin notched another milestone last month when it launched its first rocket, called New Glenn, into orbit.
Earlier this month, Blue Origin announced it was laying off 10% of its workforce, or roughly 1,400 employees, following several years of rapid growth. Blue Origin CEO Dave Limp told staffers the cuts would enable the company to scale New Glenn manufacturing and accelerate the pace of rocket launches.
WATCH: Blue Origin CEO talks about the company’s New Glenn rocket launch