Kalpana Chawla

NASA Astronaut
Born	July 1, 1961 Karnal, Haryana, India
Died	February 1, 2003(2003-02-01) (aged 41) Over Texas
Previous occupation	Research Scientist
Time in space	31days 14hours 54minutes
Selection	1994 NASA Group
Missions	STS-87, STS-107
Mission insignia
Awards

Kalpana Chawla (July 1, 1961 – February 1, 2003) was an Indian-American astronaut who, was a mission specialist on the space shuttle Columbia. She first flew on the Columbia in 1997 as a mission specialist and primary robotic arm operator. Chawla was one of seven crew members killed in the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster.^[1]

Early life

Kalpana Chawla was born to a Hindu family in Karnal, Haryana, India on 1 July 1961 to Banarasi Lal Chawla and Sanjyothi. She had two sisters, Sunita and Deepa, and a brother, Sanjay. She became a US citizen in 1990. She was the youngest of four siblings in the family.

Education

Chawla completed her earlier schooling at Tagore Public School, Karnal and her Bachelor of Engineering degree in Aeronautical Engineering at Punjab Engineering College at Chandigarh in 1982. She moved to the United States in 1982 and obtained a M.S. degree in aerospace engineering from the University of Texas at Arlington in 1984. Chawla went on to earn a second M.S. degree in 1986 and a Ph.D. in aerospace engineering in 1988 from the University of Colorado at Boulder. Later that year she began working at the NASA Ames Research Center as vice president of Overset Methods, Inc. where she did CFD research on Vertical/Short Takeoff and Landing concepts. Chawla held a Certificated Flight Instructor rating for airplanes, gliders and Commercial Pilot licenses for single and multi-engine airplanes, seaplanes and gliders.

NASA career

Chawla joined the NASA 'Astronaut Corps' in March 1995 and was selected for her first flight in 1996. She spoke the following words while traveling in the weightlessness of space, "You are just your intelligence". She had traveled 10.4 million km, as many as 252 times around the Earth.
Her first space mission began on November 19, 1997 as part of the six-astronaut crew that flew the Space Shuttle Columbia flight STS-87. Chawla was the first Indian-born woman and the second Indian person to fly in space, following cosmonaut Rakesh Sharma who flew in 1984 in a spacecraft. On her first mission Chawla traveled over 10.4 million miles in 252 orbits of the earth, logging more than 372 hours in space. During STS-87, she was responsible for deploying the Spartan Satellite which malfunctioned, necessitating a spacewalk by Winston Scott and Takao Doi to capture the satellite. A five-month NASA investigation fully exonerated Chawla by identifying errors in software interfaces and the defined procedures of flight crew and ground control.
After the completion of STS-87 post-flight activities, Chawla was assigned to technical positions in the astronaut office to work on the space station, her performance in which was recognized with a special award from her peers.

Chawla in the space shuttle simulator

In 2000 she was selected for her second flight as part of the crew of STS-107. This mission was repeatedly delayed due to scheduling conflicts and technical problems such as the July 2002 discovery of cracks in the shuttle engine flow liners. On January 16, 2003, Chawla finally returned to space aboard Columbia on the ill-fated STS-107 mission. Chawla's responsibilities included the microgravity experiments, for which the crew conducted nearly 80 experiments studying earth and space science, advanced technology development, and astronaut health and safety.


Death
Chawla died in the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster which occurred on February 1, 2003, when the Space Shuttle disintegrated over Texas during re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere, with the loss of all seven crew members, shortly before it was scheduled to conclude its 28th mission, STS-107.