Andhra Born Sirisha Bandla Set To Fly Into Space, 2nd India-Born Woman To Do So After Kalpana Chawla
Sirisha Bandla, an Indian-American woman, will be one of the five people alongside Virgin Galactic¡¯s billionaire founder Richard Branson to travel space.
Sirisha Bandla, an Indian-American woman, will be one of the five people alongside Virgin Galactic¡¯s billionaire founder Richard Branson to travel to space. The crewed test spaceflight is scheduled to blast off on July 11 from New Mexico.
In doing so, Bandla will become the second Indian-born woman to fly into space after Kalpana Chawla and the fourth Indian to fly into space.
Twitter/@SirishaBandla
Aiming to beat fellow billionaire Jeff Bezos into space, Branson's company on Thursday announced the launch of its fourth test flight to space.
¡°I am so incredibly honoured to be a part of the amazing crew of #Unity22, and to be a part of a company whose mission is to make space available to all,¡± Bandla, said on the microblogging platform on Friday.
I am so incredibly honored to be a part of the amazing crew of #Unity22, and to be a part of a company whose mission is to make space available to all. https://t.co/sPrYy1styc
¡ª Sirisha Bandla (@SirishaBandla) July 2, 2021
As per a report in The Economic Times, Bandla, who was born in Guntur, Andhra Pradesh and grew up in Houston, Texas, started working at Virgin Galactic in 2015 and is currently vice president of government affairs at the company.
She is a graduate in aeronautical engineering from Purdue University and also holds a Master of Business Administration degree from Georgetown University.
Bandla has worked for a space policy job at the Commercial Spaceflight Federation (CSF) and L-3 Communications in Greenville, Texas, as an aerospace engineer.
AP
Branson and Bandla will be joined by Virgin Galactic¡¯s chief astronaut instructor Beth Moses and lead operations engineer Colin Bennett on the flight. Pilots Dave Mackay and Michael Masucci will fly the VSS Unity spacecraft.
Bandla will be the fourth Indian-origin person to fly to space. Only Rakesh Sharma, the first Indian to travel to space, Kalpana Chawla and Indian-American Astronaut Sunita Williams, precede Bandla.
