She is strongly connected to her roots in Andhra Pradesh but her ambition of flying is now taking her to the skies.
Sirisha Bandla will be the second India-born girl to go into the space and the first Telugu girl to do so as she is set to take off on Virgin Galactic’s winged rocket ship from New Mexico on July 11. Kalpana Chawla was the first Indian-born woman astronaut to go into space.
Born in Guntur, she is part of Virgin Galactic, a leading American private space agency, that will launch its spacecraft next weekend. The team includes English business magnate Sir Richard Branson. Sirisha, who is in her early 30s, and Beth Moses will be the two females in the crew among the six Virgin Galactic employees on the trip.
Her father Muralidhar Bandla, an agriculture scientist, migrated to the USA for better opportunities after she was born here. He is presently working with the US Embassy in India. Her grandfather Ragaiah is also an agriculture scientist and she was raised at his place till she was five.
On the journey Sirisha is taking on July 11, she tweeted: “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”.
K.C. Chekuri, Dallas-based family friend of the Bandlas, said, “It’s a proud moment for all the Telugus across the world and an inspiration for generations.”
Sirisha’s talents were recognised quite early by the Telugu community in the USA. The Telugu Association of North America (TANA) honoured her with TANA Youth Star Award in its 2014 convention for achieving great milestones.
Sirisha, an aeronautical engineering graduate from Purdue University, is currently working on Government Affairs and Business Development for Virgin Galactic and its sister company, Virgin Orbit supporting both LauncherOne and SpaceShipTwo programmes.
Earlier, she served as the associate director for the Commercial Spaceflight Federation, an industry association of commercial spaceflight companies. She worked on various policies with the aim to promote the commercial space industry and make commercial spaceflight a reality. She also served as an aerospace engineer designing components for advanced aircraft at L-3 Communications in Greenville, Texas.
Sirisha will be the fourth Indian to fly into space after Rakesh Sharma, Kalpana Chawla and Sunita Williams.