Priya Abiram once thought she was the stupidest student in her technology class. Today, she’s an astronaut life-support-systems engineer at Vast preparing for a spaceflight NET next year aboard Virgin Galactic.
Abiram’s mission will study menstruation in microgravity for Operation Period, a non-profit founded by crewmate Manju Bangalore.
“I will be the youngest research astronaut, which is very exciting,” Abiram, 22, told Payload.
Rocket dreams: Her journey to space began in KSC’s Rocket Garden, where she admired the “huge machines that touch the sky” at just seven years old.
After that, Abiram vowed to study rockets. None of her family members were in aerospace, requiring Abiram to learn in unfamiliar environments —including that technology class in eighth grade.
“I was very quiet, didn’t talk to anyone,” Abiram recalled. But at year’s end, her teacher held a model-rocketry competition. Abiram poured her heart into it and was shocked when she won. “It was like, ‘Wow, I can actually do this, and maybe I could go to space.’”
Onwards and upwards: Since school was short on practical experiences to prepare for spaceflight, her mother suggested joining the Air Force’s Civil Air Patrol (CAP), a volunteer civilian auxiliary to the Air Force. CAP helped Abiram gain confidence and connections, including a mentor who is now in the Space Force.
Inspired by her mentor’s confidence working a room, Abiram started her own CAP aerospace program, teaching 150 students STEM skills like rocketry and robotics. The program quickly scaled nationally, gaining Abiram her first internship at Boeing while still in high school.
Next, Abiram attended Cornell University, completing her undergrad and masters within four years, while racking up internships at places like KSC, Blue Origin, and Vast. In between, she did extreme-environment training to gain astronaut-like skills before her mission selection.
Looking back, Abiram says it is okay to be scared by big aspirations. “I don’t really know what I’m doing, but I’m understanding that it’ll be fine.”
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“That’s where I realized we’re stuck at a 1980s standard: still shielding spacecraft with aluminum, and rad-hardened electronics [were] too expensive to build at the scale this economy demands,” Hunain told Payload.
Dallas-based Balerion Space Ventures has surpassed its $200M target for its second fund, the firm announced Thursday. Fund II—which remains open—is more than five times the size of the firm’s debut fund, which came in at just under $40M.
Balerion had closed ~$90M as of May, according to Venture Capital Journal. Cofounder and General Partner Daniel Kleinmann chalked up the momentum since then to portfolio companies hitting milestones and raising up-rounds—which he said resonated with LPs.
The firm is also holding back capital for follow-on rounds. “These are really capital-intensive businesses,” Kleinmann told Payload. “Having the ability to reserve capital to continue supporting these businesses as they hit major technical, commercial, government milestones is really important to us.”
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