Sirisha Bandla, Second Indian Born Woman To Fly Into Space

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  • NET Web Desk

Sirisha Bandla will be the second Indian-born person and the first of Telugu origin to go to space.

She will be part of the Virgin Atlantic’s crew that will fly into space on July 11 from New Mexico.

The crew consists a total of 6 space travellers with 4 mission specialists and 2 pilots.

Four mission specialists are : Sirisha Bandla – Researcher Experience, Colin Bennett – Cabin Procedures Evaluation, Beth Moses – Spaceship Cabin Lead & Test Director, Richard Branson – Evaluating Customer Spaceflight Experience.

It also consists of 2 pilots – Dave Mackay, Chief Pilot and Michael Masucci.

“Our first fully crewed rocket powered test flight is planned to take place on July 11th with two pilots and four mission specialists including @RichardBranson onboard. If we were flying your crew, who’d be floating in zero gravity next to you? Tag your astronauts! #Unity22” – tweeted by Virgin Galactic.

Sirisha and Beth Moses will be the two women crew members on the trip.

The 34-year-old aeronautical engineer, will be the second Indian-born woman to go into space after Kalpana Chawla and the fourth Indian after Kalpana Chawla, Rakesh Sharma and Sunita Williams to fly into space.

According to The News Minute report, Sirisha is the Vice President of Government Affairs and Research Operations at Virgin Galactic, who will be taking care of the researcher experience on the Unity22 mission.

“Unity 22” mission will be the twenty-second flight test for VSS Unity and the Company’s fourth crewed spaceflight. It will also be the first to carry a full crew of two pilots and four mission specialists in the cabin, including the Company’s founder, Sir Richard Branson, who will be testing the private astronaut experience.

Sharing the exciting news, Sirisha tweeted, “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.”

She will evaluate 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.

Bandla was born in Guntur, Andhra Pradesh and grew up in Houston, Texas. She is a graduate in aeronautical engineering from Purdue University and also holds a Master of Business Administration degree from Georgetown University.

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