India-born
Sirisha Bandla will be one of the six space travellers aboard VSS Unity of
Virgin Galactic scheduled to take off on July 11 from New Mexico alongside Sir
Richard Branson, the billionaire founder of the company.

Born in Andhra Pradesh‘s Guntur district,
Bandla, 34, was brought up in Houston, Texas. Interested in space and science from the
very childhood, Bandla studied at Indiana’s Purdue University’s school of
aeronautics and astronautics.

She later joined Branson’s Virgin Galactic and
rose to become the vice-president of government affairs at the company.
Bandla is astronaut 004 on the VSS Unity and
will be testing researcher experience.

While Bandla prepares for the flight,
her grandfather back home is equally excited.

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“I’m very happy. From the
beginning, she was very fascinated with the sky. Now she’s going to space with
five other members. She is brave and strong in decision-making,” Dr
Ragaiah told ANI from Andhra Pradesh.

While Bandla is the third Indian-origin woman to
fly to space, she is the second India-born astronaut to do so after Kalpana
Chawla.

Other two Indians who have made it to space are Sunita Williams and
Rakesh Sharma.
Williams went into space several times and at
one point held the record of most spacewalks by any woman.

Chawla died during
her second space voyage as her shuttle columbia exploded during return to the
Earth
UK billionaire and founder of the Virgin
Galactic company Richard Branson announced on June 2 that he will make a
spaceflight on July 11.

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He and Elon Musk of Tesla are in an undeclared
competition to be the first entrepreneur in space.
Branson said: “I truly believe that space
belongs to all of us. After 17 years of research, engineering and innovation,
the new commercial space industry is poised to open the Universe to humankind
and change the world for good.”

The unity rocket is scheduled to climb to an
altitude of 295,000ft, giving the passengers a few minutes of weightlessness
and a view of the Earth’s curvature. Around 600 individuals have already paid
deposits for rides of future flights.