A crew of six women including Amanda Nguyen, a civil rights activist who becomes the first Vietnamese woman to fly to space; CBS Mornings co-host Gayle King; pop star Katy Perry; film producer Kerianne Flynn; entrepreneur and former Nasa rocket scientist Aisha Bowe; and Sánchez, a journalist and philanthropist – will blast off on Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket. The vehicle will lift off at Launch Site One on Corn Ranch, a private ranch in rural West Texas. Unlike flights to the International Space Station (ISS), which can last weeks or even months, the NS-31 flight will last just 11 minutes.
The flight will be live-streamed on Blue Origin's website and other platforms, starting about 90 minutes before the NS-31 spacecraft is launched. Blue Origin outlined that less than three minutes post-launch, the booster will detach from the NS-31 capsule, allowing the capsule to continue its trajectory into space where the all-female crew will experience several minutes of weightlessness and observe breathtaking panoramic views of Earth from an altitude of approximately 100 kilometers.
After reaching its maximum altitude, the capsule will descend to Earth, deploying parachutes to slow its re-entry before landing near the launch site in rural West Texas. According to Blue Origin, the crew capsule will use its reverse thrusters and parachutes to land at a speed of just 1.6km per hour.
Amanda Nguyen was born on October 10, 1991, graduated from Harvard University and interned at NASA in 2013. She then worked at the Harvard & Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, and then served as deputy White House liaison at the US State Department.
In November 2014, Amanda founded RISE, a non-governmental organization with the aim of protecting the civil rights of people who have experienced sexual assault.
In 2019, she was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for her efforts to fight for the rights of victims of sexual assault.
The Vietnam National Space Center under the Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology (VAST) has announced its collaboration with Vietnamese-American astronaut Amanda Nguyen on a historic spaceflight featuring the first all-female crew. The mission is scheduled to launch at 8:30 a.m. local time in Van Horn of Texas (8:30 p.m. Vietnam time).
On this mission, Amanda Nguyen—founder of the NGO Rise and a renowned civil rights activist—will carry 169 Vietnamese lotus seeds into space. These specially selected seeds, chosen by the Center for Research and Development of Flowers and Ornamental Plants under the Vietnam Academy of Agricultural Sciences, represent the purity and resilience of Vietnamese culture. Upon their return to Earth, the seeds will undergo scientific analysis to evaluate the effects of the space environment on plant germination and development, contributing to advancements in biological research and agricultural science.
