Pop icon Katy Perry and five other pioneering women safely returned to Earth on Sunday after launching into space aboard Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin New Shepard rocket. The brief but exhilarating 11-minute journey carried them more than 100 kilometers (62 miles) above Earth, offering a fleeting experience of weightlessness and breathtaking views from the edge of space.

Perry was joined on the mission by Bezos’s fiancée Lauren Sánchez, CBS anchor Gayle King, former NASA rocket scientist Aisha Bowe, civil rights advocate Amanda Nguyen, and film producer Kerianne Flynn. The all-female crew lifted off from Blue Origin’s West Texas launch site just after 8:30 a.m. local time.

After a parachute-assisted descent, the capsule landed gently in the desert, where the group was met with cheers and applause from the ground team. Jeff Bezos himself opened the capsule hatch, welcoming Sánchez—the first to step out—with a warm embrace.

“I’m so proud of this crew,” Sánchez said, holding back tears. “I can’t put it into words… I looked out the window and saw the moon. Earth looked so quiet. It was quiet, but really alive.”

Perry emerged moments later, overcome with emotion. She dropped to her knees, kissed the Earth, and held a daisy to the sky. “I just want to have a moment with the ground—just appreciate the ground for a second,” she said. After the flight, she described feeling “super connected to life” and “so connected to love.”

During the journey, King noted a particularly touching moment: hearing Perry sing Louis Armstrong’s What a Wonderful World while floating in microgravity.

Kerianne Flynn, the last to exit the capsule, pointed toward the sky with a joyful exclamation: “I went to space!”

Spectators included a host of celebrities who gathered to witness the milestone. From the viewing platform, Khloé Kardashian shared her emotions: “I didn’t realize how emotional it would be. I have all this adrenaline just standing here,” she said. “Whatever you dream of is within reach. Dream big, wish for the stars, and one day, you could be among them.”

Oprah Winfrey, present to support longtime friend Gayle King, praised her courage. “Gayle has real anxiety when it comes to flying—she clutches someone’s arm during the slightest turbulence,” Winfrey said. “This was her overcoming a wall of fear.”

Blue Origin’s latest mission was not only a celebration of scientific achievement but also a powerful showcase of female empowerment, courage, and the limitless potential of exploration.