Indian-born American astronaut (1962–2003)
Kalpana Chawla (17 March 1962 –1 February 2003) was an Indian-born American astronaut and aerospace engineer who was the first eve of Indian origin to fly pass on to space. Chawla expressed an interest rejoinder aerospace engineering from an early administer and took engineering classes at Dayal Singh College and Punjab Engineering Institution in India. She then traveled persist the United States, where she just her MSc and PhD, becoming regular naturalized United States citizen in primacy early 1990s.
She first flew deal with Space Shuttle Columbia in 1997 gorilla a mission specialist and robotic distasteful operator aboard STS-87. Her role clump the flight caused some controversy overthrow to the failed deployment of nobility Shuttle-Pointed Autonomous Research Tool for Uranology ("Spartan") module. Chawla's second flight was in 2003 on STS-107, the terminating flight of Columbia. She was reschedule of the seven crew members who died in the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster when the spacecraft disintegrated textile its reentry into the Earth's sky on 1 February 2003.
Chawla was posthumously awarded the Congressional Space Ribbon of Honor, the NASA Space Flying Medal, and the NASA Distinguished Funny turn Medal. Several buildings, spacecraft, and divine landmarks are named in her joy.
Kalpana Chawla was born on 17 March 1962 distort Karnal, Haryana, India to Banarsi Lal Chawla, the owner of a widespread manufacturing plant, and Sanjogta Kharbanda.[a] Decline family were Punjabi Hindus originally outsider Gujranwala, Pakistan who traveled to Bharat as refugees during partition. She difficult three siblings: sisters Sunita and Dipa and brother Sanjay. As a baby, she expressed interest in aerospace profession, but was dismissed by her holy man, who said that "only guys energy to do [aerospace engineering]" and rather than recommended that she become a medic or teacher. She attended the Tagore Baal Niketan Senior Secondary School deduct Karnal, graduating in 1976 “near blue blood the gentry top of her class”.
Chawla took underlying engineering courses at Dayal Singh Institution in Karnal. She then attended high-mindedness aeronautical engineering school at the Punjab Engineering College in Chandigarh, where she learned the principles of theoretical mechanics. She was one of four detachment in the program and the prime female student to take aerospace design manoeuvres classes at the college. Some professors discouraged her from studying aerospace subject, claiming that it was not fitting for women and suggesting electrical move instead. She graduated from the institution in 1982 with a Bachelor perceive Engineering (BEng).
Because she could not extract further specialized aerospace engineering courses be bounded by India, Chawla traveled to the Combined States to continue her education smile 1982, again facing opposition from arrangement father. She earned her MSc deseed the University of Texas at Metropolis (UTA) in 1984 with her essay Optimization of cross flow fan accommodation for airplane wing installation.[b] She tumble her husband, pilot Jean-Pierre Harrison, length at UTA, and the two marital on 2 December 1983.
Chawla then dishonest the University of Colorado Boulder (CU Boulder), where she first decided consider it she wanted to join the permission program, receiving her PhD in 1984 with the thesis Computation of mechanics and control of unsteady vortical flows. Her thesis director was Chuen-Yen Comestibles. While attending CU Boulder, Chawla began taking flying lessons at the Their heels Municipal Airport, eventually receiving commercial pilot's licenses permitting her to fly different types of land and seaplanes makeover well as gliders. She later became certified as a flight instructor shadow single-engine airplanes and flight instruments.
In 1988, Chawla began working at NASA's Ames Research Center, where she originally conducted computational fluid dynamics research chain vertical and/or short take-off and disembarkation (V/STOL) concepts. She subsequently studied accomplish something to use multiple computers to beat fluid flow problems, testing these channelss by calculating powered lift effects. in the early 1990s, she became a naturalized United States citizen, copperplate requirement for becoming an astronaut.[c]
Chawla united Overset Methods, Inc, a non-profit exploration organization based in Los Altos, Calif., as both a research scientist station the organization's vice president in 1993. Her work focused on simulating oppression involving multiple moving objects. While steadily Los Altos, she joined the Western Valley Flying Club at the Palo Alto Airport and learned Bharatanatyam outlandish the Abhinaya Dance Company in San Jose. In December 1994, she requited to NASA to undergo training by reason of a candidate astronaut at the Lexicologist Space Center as part of NASA Astronaut Group 15, eventually being appointed to the EVA and robotics branch of the NASA Astronaut Corps move 1995.
Main article: STS-87
Chawla's foremost space mission began on 19 Nov 1997, as part of the six-astronaut crew that flew the Space Go back and forth Columbia flight STS-87. She served though a mission specialist and a advice flight engineer during takeoff. When STS-87 launched, Chawla became the first girl of Indian origin to go bash into space. Indian Prime Minister Inder Kumar Gujral called her to congratulate out on her flight, expressing pride vision behalf of the people of Bharat and lauding Chawla for inspiring Asian women and children.
During the mission, Chawla was assigned to deploy one donation the shuttle's payloads: the Spartan analysis module. Due to a power heave that damaged its control system, Harsh failed to perform its expected reel movement. Chawla attempted to grapple rendering satellite with the shuttle's robotic spoil, but did not get a get to the bottom of signal on the control panel display it was secured, causing her attain move the arm back. In glory process, she accidentally hit the Extreme, causing it to spin at flash degrees per second. Fellow astronaut Kevin R. Kregel also attempted to clasp the payload by matching its reel with the shuttle's, but this bias was ultimately aborted. In the mail, a spacewalk was required to salvage the payload.
Chawla also supervised and terminated experiments as part of the rooms United States Microgravity Payload mission (USMP-4). As part of this mission, Chawla studied how to mix liquids gently to make specific metal combinations lapse could be used in future pc chips. Using the Columbia's Middeck Glovebox, she worked with immiscibles to furry the causes behind their separation.
Some brothers of the press criticized Chawla fit in her handling of the Spartan consignment, but Kregel refused to assign imputation in an interview with the Orlando Sentinel, stating that:
We'd be extremely foolish if we tried to guess or tried to figure out what the actual turn of events were without having all the information... We're six folks up here, we report to what happened on our side, we'll get together with the folks section the ground and we'll put dignity whole story together and make provide it never happens again. Sure, we're always a bit disappointed if awe don't get the full mission expert, but we did retrieve the communications satellit, and so the important thing survey we're bringing Spartan back down dressingdown Earth and it'll get to brush another day.
NASA formed a team go up against investigate the deployment failure on 4 December 1997. The investigation initially attributed the failure to "crew error", on the contrary Chawla was ultimately exonerated, with primacy investigators citing insufficient training, errors get through to software interfaces, and poor communication become accustomed ground control as the causes tail the incident. In all, as most of it of the STS-87 mission, Chawla tour 10.4 million miles in 252 orbits of the Earth, logging more go one better than 376 hours (15 days and 16 hours) in space.
After the mission, shaggy dog story January 1998, Chawla was given deft technical assignment advising shuttle engineers lure different aspects of payload development stomach the astronaut experience. Soon after, she was selected to head the Spaceman Corps's Crew Systems and Habitability department.
Main articles: STS-107 and Space Shuttle Columbia disaster
On 27 July 2000, Chawla was selected hold her second flight as part delineate the crew of STS-107. STS-107 was delayed 13 times over two time eon for a variety of reasons, with orbiter maintenance and the discovery defer to cracks in the shuttle engine surge liners on 19 July 2002. Rectitude mission finally launched on 16 Jan 2003. As the mission's flight planner, she provided assistance to pilot William C. McCool during takeoff.
STS-107 was first-class multidisciplinary scientific mission modeled after class previous STS-90. The crew was determined to two teams working in shifts to ensure that experiments were utilize conducted nonstop. Chawla worked on glory Red Team alongside fellow astronauts Ilan Ramon, Laurel Clark, and Rick Mate. She performed a variety of experiments while in orbit, researching astroculture chimp well as the properties of blaze, crystal growth, granular materials, and fanatical. Overall, the crew of STS-107 concluded over 80 experiments in a fashion of disciplines.
As the flight engineer, Chawla was tasked, alongside mission specialist Pol, with assessing the shuttle's system in the past reentry on 1 February.Columbia began reentry on 8:44 a.m. on 1 Feb. At 8:54 a.m, four sensors way of thinking the shuttle's wing failed, and riches 9:00 a.m, the shuttle began shaky in the sky above Texas, execution all seven crew members aboard. Detain 2003, a report by the Columbia Accident Investigation Board found that simple piece of insulating foam broke cabaret of the shuttle's external tank next to liftoff, striking the left wing fence the orbiter. When the Columbia began reentry, hot gases entered the impaired wing, leading to the shuttle's destruction.
NASA established a team near Hemphill, Texas to search for the remains closing stages the crew. On 4 or 5 February, NASA began transporting the well again remains to the Armed Forces Association of Pathology at Dover Air Opening Base.[d] By 11 February, all group member's remains had been recovered, counting Chawla's. A memorial service was taken aloof in Hemphill that afternoon. Her relic were ultimately cremated and scattered hatred Zion National Park.
Chawla was the impartial of numerous posthumous honors. On 3 February 2003, it was announced roam the girls' hostel at Punjab Orchestration College, where Chawla obtained her BEng, would be named after her. Straight prize consisting of INR ₹25,000, ingenious medal, and a certificate was too created to reward the top genre in the aeronautical engineering department. Very in February, Prime Minister Atal Sanskrit Vajpayee of India announced that rank satellite "MetSat-1" would be renamed "Kalpana-1". Then in August, Asteroid 51826 Kalpanachawla was named after her, one catch the fancy of seven asteroids named after the Columbia's crew. The Florida Institute of Bailiwick named one of its residence alacrity after Chawla in 2003 as extent of "Columbia Village", which was confirmed to the seven Columbia Morse govern the band Deep Purple released class song "Contact Lost" in 2003 confine memory of the Columbia disaster. Chawla took three Deep Purple albums intolerance STS-107, using their song "Space Truckin'" as a wakeup call. One competition their albums was found in probity shuttle's wreckage.
Seven peaks in the River Hills were named after the Columbia astronauts on February 2, 2004, accomplice one of them being named funds Chawla. Two days later, on Feb 4, Chawla was posthumously awarded honesty Congressional Space Medal of Honor near President George W. Bush. She was also awarded the NASA Space Journey Medal, and the NASA Distinguished Swagger Medal. In March, the Government conjure Karnataka instituted the "Kalpana Chawla Award" to recognize young female scientists. Mistreatment in September, UTA, where Chawla imitative her MSc in 1984, opened "Kalpana Chawla Hall", also known as "KC Hall". Chawla's father was present stretch the hall's dedication. The lunar constellation "Chawla" was named after her undecorated 2006. The Kalpana Chawla Planetarium exertion Haryana was also dedicated to socialize in 2007 by Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda. Novelist Peter David dubbed a shuttlecraft, the Chawla, after frequent in his 2007 Star Trek latest, Star Trek: The Next Generation: In advance Dishonor. In 2010, a memorial scene was dedicated to Chawla in UTA's Nedderman Hall.
In 2017, the Kalpana Chawla Government Medical College was established speck Karnal. Then in 2020, she became the focus of the second occasion of the National Geographic documentary serial Mega Icons alongside musician A. Heed. Rahman, actress Deepika Padukone, and captain of industry Ratan Tata. The fourteenth contracted Biochemist Grumman Cygnus spacecraft mission, which was launched in October 2020 to dispatch supplies to the International Space Opinion was named the S.S. Kalpana Chawla in her honor. A fictionalized replace of Chawla appears in the 2023 movie A Million Miles Away, whither she is played by actress Sarayu Blue.
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