Katy Perry set to roar into space on all-female flight

WASHINGTON - Pop star Katy Perry will be the biggest name in an all-female group set to touch the edge of space Monday, roaring into the cosmos on one of billionaire Jeff Bezos' rockets.

The Firework and California Gurls singer will be lofted more than 100 kilometres above the Earth's surface in a vessel from Blue Origin, the space company owned by the Amazon founder.

Five other women including Bezos' fiancée Lauren Sanchez will join the flight, slated to blast off from western Texas at around 8:30 am (1330 GMT).

Their fully automated craft will rise vertically before the crew capsule detaches mid-flight, later falling back to the ground slowed by parachutes and a retro rocket.

Monday's mission is 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 will bring 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.

'INSPIRATION'

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."

"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 added.

Perry, launched onto the international stage with her 2008 hit I Kissed a Girl, will sit alongside TV presenter Gayle King, film producer Kerianne Flynn, former NASA scientist Aisha Bowe and Amanda Nguyen, founder of a campaign group against sexual violence.