National AeronauTics Kalpana Chawla

                               National Aeronautics Kalpana Chawla 

Kalpana Chawla ( March 17,1962 - February 1, 2003) was an Indo-American astronaut and the first woman of India origin in space. She first flew on space shuttle Columbia in 1997 as a mission specialist and primary robotic arm operator. In 2003, Chawla was one of the seven crew member killed in the Space shuttle Columbia disaster.

Kalpana Chawla was born on 17 March 1962 in Karnal. Her official date of birth was altered to 1 July 1961 to allow her to join school underage. She moved to the United States in 1982 where she obtained a master of science degree in aerospace engineering from the University of Texas at Allington in 1984. Determined to become an astronaut even in the face of the Challenger disaster, Chawla went on to earn a second Master in 1986 and a PHD in aerospace engineering in 1988 from University of Colorado at Boulder. 


*   Career 
*   First space mission 
*   Second space mission 
*   Awards
*   Honors and recognition 


Career 

 In 1988, she began working at the NASA Ames Research Center, where she did Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) research on Vertical/short Takeoff and Landing concepts. In 1993, she joined Overset Methods, Inc. as Vice President and Research Scientist Specializing in simulation of moving multiple body problem.

Chawla held a Certificated Flight Instructor rating for airplanes, gliders and Commercial pilot licenses for single and multi-engine airplanes, peneplanes and gliders. Becoming  a naturalized U.S citizen in April 1991, Chawla applied for the NASA  Astronaut Corps.

She joined the corps in march 1995 and was selected for her first flight in 1996. she spoke the following while  traveling in the weightlessness of space, " you are  just your intelligence ". She traveled 10.67 million Km, as many as 252 times around the Earth. 



First Space mission.


Her first space mission began on November 19, 1997 with all 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 on the Soyuz T-11. On her first mission , Chawla traveled over 10.4 million miles in 252 orbits of the earth, logging more than 372 hours inn 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 error 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 n which was recognized with a special award from her peers.


Second Space mission   

In 2000, Chawla was on her second flight as part of the crew of STS-107. This mission was repeatedly delayed due to many 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 space shuttle 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, advance technology development, and astronaut health and safety. During the launch of STS-107, Columbia's 28th mission, a piece of foam insulation broke off from the Space shuttle external tank and struck the left wing of the orbiter.

A few previous shuttle launches had seen minor damage from foam  shedding. but some engineers suspected that the damage to Columbia was more serious. NASA managers limited the  investigation, reasoning that the crew could not have fixed the problem if it has been confirmed. When Columbia re- entered the atmosphere of  Earth, the damage allowed hot atmospheric gases to penetrate  and destroy the internal wing structure, which caused the spacecraft to become unstable and slowly break apart.

After the disaster, Space shuttle flight operations were suspended for more than two Years similar to the aftermath of the challenger disaster. Construction of the International Space Station (ISS) was put 
on hold; the station relied entirely on the Russian Roscommon state Corporation for resupply for 29 months for crew rotation until STS-121. Death 

Awards 

* Congressional Space medal of Honor 
* NASA Space Flight Medal 
* NASA Distinguished Service Medal 


Honors and Recognition 

Asteroid 51826 Kalpana Chawla , one of seven named after the Columbia's crew.

On February 5 2003, the  prime  Minister of India announced that the meteorological series of  satellites , MetSat, was to be renamed "Kalpana ". The first satellite of the series, "MetSat-1", Launched by India on September 12, 2002 was renamed.

74th Street in Jackson Heights, Queens, new York City has been renamed Kalpana Chawla Way in her honor.

The Kalpana Chawla Award was instituted by the Government of Karnataka in 2004 to recognize young women scientists. 


                        NASA has dedicated a supercomputer to Chawla. 
    
One of  Florida Institute of Technology's  student apartment complexes, Columbia village Suites, has halls after each of the astronauts, Including Chawla.

Steve Morse from the band Deep purple created the song " Contact Lost " in memory of the Columbia tragedy along with her interest in the band. The song can be found on the album Bananas.

Novelist Peter David named a  shuttlecraft, the Chawla, after the astronaut, including Chawla. after the astronaut in his 2007 star Trek novel , star trek : The Next Generation: Before Dishonor.

The Kalpana Chawla ISU Scholarship found was founded by alumni of the International Space University (ISU) in 2010 to support India student Participation in international space education programs.