Sirisha Bandla, a 34-year-old aeronautical engineer, will become the 4th Indian-origin person to gear up and fly as past of the Virgin Galactic’s crew on the 11 of July to fly in outer space. She will also be the second Indian-born woman after Kalpana Chawla to fly into outer space.
She will be part of a six-crew member including billionaire Sir Richard Branson, founder of the company, on board Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo Unity that will blast off to the edge of space from New Mexico.
Born in Guntur district of Andhra Pradesh, she grew in Houston, Texas and had always wanted to be an astronaut. She studied aeronautical engineering at Purdue University and holds a Master of Business Administration degree from Georgetown University. However, her poor eyesight meant she could not make it as an astronaut or pilot breaking her dream of becoming part of the Air Force-to-NASA.
In 2015 she started working at Virgin Galactic and became the Vice President of Government Affairs and Research Operations in 2021.
Bandla will be astronaut no 004 and her flight role will be as Researcher Experience. 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 during the flight.
