Bandla: Feel I'm taking a bit of India up there
The Times of India Delhi|July 10, 2021
Meet 1st India-Born After Kalpana Who Will Go Into Space
Saurabh Sinha
Bandla: Feel I'm taking a bit of India up there

New Delhi: The endless void had called out to Sirisha Bandla since the time she was a child growing up in Houston, the seat of America’s manned space programme. The Andhra-born girl knew then that one day she would head out into space, “no matter what”. On Sunday (July 11), her rocket-fuelled dreams will come true.

Bandla (34) will be “Astronaut 004” on board Virgin Galactic’s space plane VSS Unity, flying to the edge of space at about three and a half times the speed of sound along with Virgin founder Richard Branson (Astronaut 001) and four others in a fully crewed 90-minute suborbital flight.

“I feel like I am taking a bit of India up there with me,” she told TOI in an exclusive interaction from VG’s Spaceport America in New Mexico on Friday.

If all goes as planned, Bandla (34), a Trekkie, will be only the second India-born woman to go into space, after Nasa astronaut Kalpana Chawla who lost her life in the space shuttle Columbia disaster in 2003.

90-MINUTE SPACEFLIGHT

1 Take-off: Launch will begin with a runway takeoff before spaceship (VSS Unity) and mothership (VMS Eve, named after Branson’s mother) climb to just below 50,000ft

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