Meet Sanjal Gavande, Maharashtra-born woman behind Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin space flight

Days after Richard Branson launched his rocket plane into space, Jeff Bezos is now ready with his Blue Origin's New Shepard to blast into space. The New Shepard has been developed by a number of talented engineers including an engineer from India, Sanjal Gavande who played a key role in the designing of the spaceship. Read on to know more about the engineer from India.

Who is Sanjal Gavande? 

One of the brains behind Jeff Bezos's space flight Blue Origin's New Shepard, Sanjal Gavande is a 30-year-old engineer from Kalyan, Maharashtra. She is a systems engineer at Blue Origin. 

Gavande completed her engineering at the University of Mumbai and later went to the US for pursuing a master's degree. It was only then when she decided to select aerospace as a subject and she excelled in it. She always wanted to design space rockets.

Initially, Sanjal started working with Mercury Marine and Toyota Racing Development after which she started applying for the position of space engineer at NASA. However, she was not selected due to citizenship issues and later joined Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin as a systems engineer this year. 

Blue Origin's New Shepard

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is ready to fly into space with his Blue Origin's New Shepard. He will be accompanied by the crew members and the passengers on the world’s first unpiloted suborbital flight. The rocket will also have Bezos' brother, Mark Bezos on board. Also, it includes several other passengers including Mary Wally Funk who was a female astronaut trainee in 1961 and will also be the oldest person to fly to space.

The plane will reach an altitude of 200 km and land in Texas after 11 minutes of taking off. It is fully autonomous, therefore the passengers, as well as the pilots, will be able to enjoy 'sight-seeing.'

Earlier this month, billionaire Sir Richard Branson had launched his Virgin Galactic's rocket plane to space. The flight had Branson himself on board. It reached up to a height of 85 KM and landed after an hour.