SAN FRANCISCO (Diya TV) — One day after media reports began buzzing that Shawna Pandya was slated to become the third woman of Indian-origin to go to space, the young woman commented herself on the reports, saying they are false.
Earlier, Kalpana Chawla and Sunita Williams were chosen for separate NASA space missions.
“There has been no new announcement, flight assignment or selection of missions with respect to my work as a citizen-scientist astronaut with Project Possum or The PHEnOM Project,” she wrote in a Facebook post. “I am no more or less likely to fly than any other member of than these projects than I was 24 hours ago.”
Earlier reports had indicated that Pandya was one of two candidates shortlisted from the more than 3,000 that make up the Citizen Science Astronaut program. She would be a candidate to fly with eight other astronauts for a mission in 2018, reports said.
Pandya also clarified the Canadian Space Agency astronaut selection was ongoing and that she was not part of it.
Pandya is currently working as a citizen-scientist astronaut at Colorado-based Project Possum, where she studies and educates “the public about noctilucent clouds (night clouds) in the upper mesosphere.” She is also currently working at the Sea Space Exploration & Research Society where she is training as an “extreme environment scientist with a focus on extreme environment medicine and life sciences.”
