There was a woman who made headlines when Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin mission became successful. She was the 30-year-old Sanjal Gavande from Kalyan, Maharashtra. Systems engineer at Blue Origin, she was one of the members who built the suborbital rocket that took Jeff Bezos and others to space. An elated Sanjal, whose dream was to build spacecraft, said that she was happy to be a part of team Blue Origin. “I am happy that my childhood dream came true,” she added. Earlier, Indian-born Sirisha Bandla had travelled to space on Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic Spaceship.
Sanjal is the daughter of Ashok Gavande, a retired employee of Kalyan-Dombivli municipal corporation, and Surekha, who retired from MTNL.
Sanjal, who has always been attracted to space science, received her post-graduation in Mechanical Engineering from the Michigan Technological University. For a while, she worked as a mechanical design engineer at Toyota Racing Development. After receiving the pilot license in 2016, she applied for a job at NASA. However, she could not get in due to citizenship issues. Later, she applied at Blue Origin and got chosen as a system engineer. She had been working hard since April to make Bezos’ space travel successful. Blue Origin’s New Shepherd is a 60-ft long, completely autonomous rocket-capsule combination. When Jeff Bezos’ travel becomes a historic feat, India can take pride through Sanjal Gavand
