Richard Branson of Virgin Galactic has announced his first trip to space just ahead of Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos. Branson, on his voyage, will be accompanied by five other passengers among whom is Sirisha Bandla. The Indian-American, having roots in Andhra Pradesh’s Guntur will be among five passengers hopping on the trip with Branson.
The thirty years old will be the second Indian-born woman to go into space after Kalpana Chawla and the first Telugu-origin woman to achieve so. The Virgin Galactic’s test spaceflight is scheduled to take off on 11 July from New Mexico and will be the first flight carrying a full crew of company employees.
Sirisha had joined Virgin Galactic in 2015 as government affairs manager. Since then she has risen through ranks and has been handling Washington operations for Virgin Orbit, which recently delivered a satellite in space using a 747 plane. She holds a master of Business Administration from Georgetown University and is a Purdue University graduate.
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"Of course, the coolest thing is that she gets to hobnob with Richard Branson! We all are very proud of her and wishing her safe travels!’’ says Sirisha’s relative Ramarao Kanneganti.
Virgin Galactic’s flight will have six people aboard including Branson himself. It will the company’s fourth voyage to space.
Meanwhile, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin would be accompanied into space on July 20 by a female aerospace pioneer. Now, Amazon, Virgin and SpaceX are in a tight race to outcompete each other in the race of commercial space operations.