For Gayle King, the sky is no longer the limit. The “CBS Mornings” co-host will board Blue Origin’s flight to the boundary of space on Monday morning.
King will step out of her comfort zone and into a spacesuit alongside pop superstar Katy Perry, journalist and philanthropist Lauren Sánchez, former NASA rocket scientist Aisha Bowe, civil rights activist Amanda Nguyen and film producer Kerianne Flynn for the 11th human flight of Blue Origin’s New Shepard program. It will be the first all-female flight crew recorded since Soviet cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova’s solo spaceflight in 1963, according to Blue Origin.
“I don’t know how to explain being terrified and excited at the same time. It’s like how I felt about to deliver a baby,” described King when she was revealed as a crew member in February.
“My brain is just all over the place,” King told “CBS Mornings” featured host Vladimir Duthiers on Friday after arriving in West Texas days ahead of the launch. She said she’s been meditating in preparation for the trip.
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Here’s what to know about the upcoming expedition.
When is Blue Origin’s first all-women spaceflight?
The crew is scheduled to blast off on Monday, April 14, from Blue Origin’s Launch Site One in West Texas. The launch window opens at 9:30 a.m. ET.
Here’s a look at the timeline of the Blue Origin launch, from preparations to liftoff:
- 8:45 a.m. ET: Blue Origin crew arrives
- 8:55 a.m. ET: Blue Origin crew enters the capsule and members get strapped in
- 9:06 a.m. ET: Hatch closes
- 9:30 a.m. ET: Launch window opens
How to watch Blue Origin’s women-led spaceflight
- What: Blue Origin’s first-ever all-women spaceflightCBS News New York meterologist John Elliott
- Date: Monday, April 14, 2025
- Time: Coverage begins at 9 a.m. ET
- Location: Launch Site One in West Texas
- On TV: CBS television stations
- Online stream: Watch CBS News 24/7 in the video player above, download the free CBS News app or stream on Paramount+
How long will Gayle King be in space?
So far, Blue Origin says it has sent 52 passengers on the approximately 11-minute-long thrill ride to space, traveling 62 miles above Earth to the Kármán line — the generally recognized point that separates the planet’s atmosphere from space.
They’ll have about 3 to 4 minutes of weightlessness before they head back down.
“They’re going to have a spectacular view obviously of the curvature of the Earth,” CBS News senior national correspondent Mark Strassmann said on CBS News 24/7, noting that many passengers who have made the trip comment on how thin the Earth’s atmosphere is and how fragile the planet looks.
There were clear blue skies the day mountain climber Vanessa O’Brien flew to space in a New Shepard rocket in 2022.
“You are able to see something so precious. It was seeing that blue marble from above, and it translates into a sense of responsibility and an appreciation that we are all connected, that it is one planet,” O’Brien told CBS News at the time.
