Sirisha Bandla is an Indian-American Aeronautical Engineer. She is currently the “Vice President of Government Affairs and Research Operations for Virgin Galactic Unity 22”.
Sirisha was born n 1998 in Guntur, Andhra Pradesh, India. Sirisha was born in a Telugu-speaking Hindu Family in the Guntur district of Andhra Pradesh.
After her birth, she moved with her parents to Tenali, in Guntur. Up to the age of five, she split her time between her grandfather’s house in Hyderabad and her grandmother’s house Tenali. Sirisha later moved to Houston, United States with her parents. Sirisha hoped to become an astronaut in “NASA” but she was ruled out on medical grounds due to her eyesight. Sirisha joined “Virgin Galactic” in 2015, where she worked as a Vice president of Government affairs.
Sirisha previously worked for the Commercial Spaceflight Federation as an aerospace engineer with “Matthew Isakowitz”. On Sunday 11 July 2021, Sirisha flew on the Virgin Galactic Unity 22 test Flight alongside “Sri Richard Branson”, Dave Mackay, Michael Masucci, Beth Moses, and Colin Bennett. The rocket plane flew 85km above Earth. Therefore she qualified the crew as FAA commercial astronauts. During the flight, Sirisha conducted an experiment from the University of Florida to investigate how plants react to the change in gravity.
Her grandfather, Dr. Bandla Ragaiah, said “From a very young age she had the ambition to explore the sky, the moon, and the stars. Sirisha Bandla had set her eyes on space, and I am not at all surprised that she is all set to realize her dream”. She flew on the “Virgin Galactic Unity 22” mission which made her the second India-born woman to go to space and the fourth person of Indian descent ever to go past the line of space after “Rakesh Sharma, Kalpana Chawla, and Sunitha Willams”. Sirisha received her bachelor degree in aeronautical engineering from “Prude University”. She subsequently achieved her master’s degree in business administration from “The George Washington University”.
During her spaceflight, she reached a height of 89.9km above the Earth’s surface. However, as she was not a member of the Flight Crew (as VF-01 was an automated launch), she is classified by the Federal Aviation Authority as a Space Tourist. She had a time in space was 1 min 10 seconds. In the interview with TOI (Times OF India), she shared her experience in space travel with company founder Richard Branson “It was incredible. The Flight (Virgin Galactic Unity 22 Launched on July 11, 2021) went off very well. I wasn’t nervous, and everything on my test cards and mission objectives with y crewmates was completed. Though the suborbital test flight duration was 90 minutes we experienced weightlessness for around 3-4 minutes in space. We turned to each other and gave high-fives Richard was far from me, so we touched feet for a high-five. Given the opportunity, I would love to go to space again.
She was honored as one of the BBC 100 Women in December 2022.