Sanjana Gavande, Indian woman part of Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin team

Sanjana Gavande, a 30-year-old woman from Maharashtra is part of the team of engineers that built Blue Origin’s suborbital space rocket New Shephard, which will carry Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos and three others to space on July 20.

Sanjana Gavande was born in Kalyan and dreamt of building a spaceship even as a child.

Times of India quoted her saying, “I am really happy that my childhood dream is about to come true. I am proud to be a part of Team Blue Origin,”

She is the daughter of Ashok Gavande, a retired employee of the Kalyan-Dombivli Municipal Corporation, and Surekha, a retired MTNL employee.

Soon after completing her bachelor’s in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Mumbai, Sanjana Gavande left for the US to pursue a master’s in mechanical engineering at Michigan Technological University.

Ms. Gavande got her pilot’s license in 2016, after which she applied for a job at NASA – but was not selected due to citizenship issues. She later applied for a job at Blue Origin and was chosen as a systems engineer.