Sirisha Bandla to become second India-born woman to fly into space

Bandla will be part of a six-member space travelling crew onboard Virgin Galactic’s ‘VSS Unity’

Sirisha Bandla is all set to become the second Indian-born woman to fly into space on July 11, following in the footsteps of astronaut Kalpana Chawla.

Bandla will be part of the six-member space travelling crew onboard Virgin Galactic’s ‘VSS Unity’. It is scheduled to take off on July 11 from Mexico.

The company took to Twitter to announce the crew, which will be flying into space, along with founder Richard Branson.

The 34-year-old aeronautical engineer is a Purdue University graduate. Bandla joined Virgin Galactic in 2015. Currently, she holds the position of vice-president of government affairs in the company. She also holds a Master of Business Administration degree from Georgetown University.

Bandla, who has been getting a lot of love and support from her friends and family, also tweeted about her trip to space. She added, “I really didn't need to tweet this since my friends flooded the feed yesterday with it. I was overwhelmed (in a good way!) by messages of love, unrecognizable capital text, and positivity yesterday.” (sic)

Along with Branson and Bandla, the company's chief astronaut instructor Beth Moses and lead operations engineer Colin Bennett will be on the flight. Dave Mackay and Michael Masucci will be the Unity spacecraft’s pilots for the journey.

Bandla was born in Guntur, Andhra Pradesh, and later grew up in Houston, Texas. She will become the second Indian-born woman to fly into space after Kalpana Chawla and the fourth Indian to go to space after Rakesh Sharma, Kalpana Chawla and Sunita Williams.