Sanjal Gavande is among the team of engineers who built Blue Origin's suborbital space rocket 'New Shephard.'

The 30-year-old is from Maharashtra's Kalyan. 'New Shephard' will take billionaire Jeff Bezos and three others to space later this month.

Gavande is a mechanical engineering graduate from the University of Mumbai and did her master’s degree in mechanical engineering from Michigan Technological University in 2011.

She is the daughter of a municipal corporation employee and a retired MTNL official.

Her father Ashok Gavande told the media that she chose aerospace as a subject in her master's degree because she always wanted to build a spaceship.

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After her post graduation, she worked with Mercury Marine, the marine engine division of Brunswick Corporation. There she worked for three years first as a design analysis intern and then as a design analysis engineer.

She also holds a commercial pilot’s license, and applied for a space engineering job at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).

Her mother Surekha told the media that people were against her ambition to be a mechanical engineer because she was a girl. 

"She has now made us all proud. She had a dream of designing aerospace rockets and she has achieved it,” she said.