Second India-Born Woman to Go to Space, Who is Sirisha Bandla?

Sirisha Bandla is among the five people who will take the fully-crewed test space flight with Virgin Galactic.

Sirisha Bandla, who is among one of the five people to take the fourth fully-crewed test space flight with Virgin Galactic, will become the second India-born woman to travel into space on 11 July 2021.

(Photo Courtesy: Twitter/@SirishaBandla)

Sirisha Bandla, who is among the five people to take the fourth fully-crewed test space flight with Virgin Galactic, will become the second India-born woman to travel to space on 11 July 2021.

Kalpana Chawla was the first India-born woman astronaut to go to space.

Virgin Galactic’s founder billionaire Richard Branson will also be on board the flight.

The space mission, announced on Friday, 2 July, comes nine days ahead of Amazon's Jeff Bezos’ flight to space which was announced last month.

“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 wrote on Twitter.

Who is Sirisha Bandla?

Sirisha Bandla was born in Guntur, Andhra Pradesh, and grew up in Houston, Texas in the United States. She graduated in aeronautical engineering from Purdue University.

Bandla also attended Georgetown University and holds a masters in Business Administration.

She joined Virgin Galactic in 2015 and presently holds the designation of vice president of government affairs at the company.

The Andhra-born astronaut was also employed as an aerospace engineer in Texas, after which she had a stint in space policy at the Commercial Spaceflight Federation (CSF), Economic Times reported.

(With inputs from Economic Times)