It is a historical moment for Indians across the globe. 34-year-old aeronautical engineer, Sirisha Bandla is set to head to space when she flies as part of Virgin Galactic’s first fully crewed flight.
Born in Guntur district in Andhra Pradesh and brought up in Houston, Texas, Ms Bandla will join Sir Richard Branson, the company’s billionaire founder, and five others on board Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo Unity to make a journey to the edge of space from New Mexico.
A Purdue University alumna, she will be evaluating the human-tended research experience, using an experiment from the University of Florida that requires several handheld fixation tubes that will be activated at various points in the flight profile.
According to NDTV, she started in her role as the Vice President of Government Affairs and Research Operations at Virgin Galactic in January 2021. She grew up in Houston, near NASA’s Johnson Space Center, and always wanted to become an astronaut. But poor eyesight meant she could not meet the requirements to become a pilot or an astronaut, derailing her high-school plan to go the Air Force-to-NASA route.
Indians are cheering for Bandla’s achievement on social media.
Sirisha is the third Indian-origin woman to go to space after Kalpana Chawla and Sunita Williams.