Kalpana Chawla (March 17, 1962[2][a] – February 1, 2003) was the first Indian-American astronaut[3] and first Indian woman in space.[4] 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 members killed in the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster.[5]
In 1988, she began working at the NASA Ames Research Center as Vice President of Overset Methods, Inc. where she did Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) research on Vertical/Short Takeoff and Landing concepts.[8] Chawla held a Certificated Flight Instructor rating for airplanes, gliders and Commercial Pilot licenses for single and multi-engine airplanes, seaplanes and gliders.[9]
Becoming a naturalized U.S. citizen in April 1991, Chawla applied for the NASA Astronaut Corps.[2] She joined the 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 10.67 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 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 in space.[8] 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.
The girls hostel in NIT Bhopal (Maulana Azad National Institute of Technology) was renamed to Kalpana Chawla Bhavan.
The Kalpana Chawla ISU Scholarship fund was founded by alumni of the International Space University (ISU) in 2010 to support Indian student participation in international space education programs.[11]
The Kalpana Chawla Memorial Scholarship program was instituted by the Indian Students Association (ISA) at the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) in 2005 for meritorious graduate students.[12]
The Kalpana Chawla Outstanding Recent Alumni Award at the University of Colorado, given since 1983, was renamed for Chawla.[13]
In Karnal, Chawla's birthplace, at least 30,000 school children and citizens joined hands to make a 36.4-km-long human chain to support the demand for a Kalpana Chawla Government Medical College in the city, which was announced by Health Minister of India C. P. Thakur and later promised by Prime Minister of IndiaManmohan Singh. The Kalpana Chawla Medical College Nirman Committee, backed by volunteers and activists of various organizations, supported by students from 34 schools, swarmed the roads and formed a chain along the roads in Karnal to demonstrate that they continued to revere Chawla as an outstanding astronaut.[14] On November 18, 2013, the foundation stone of the college was laid in her memory by the state government.
On February 5, 2003, India's prime minister announced that the meteorological series of satellites, MetSat, was to be renamed as "Kalpana". The first satellite of the series, "MetSat-1", launched by India on September 12, 2002, is now known as "Kalpana-1". "Kalpana-2" was expected to be launched by 2007.[16][needs update]
The University of Texas at Arlington, where Chawla obtained a Master of Science degree in aerospace engineering in 1984, opened a dormitory named Kalpana Chawla Hall in 2004.Kalpana Chawla Hall, University of Texas Arlington[18]
The Kalpana Chawla Award was instituted by the government of Karnataka in 2004 for young women scientists.[19]
The girls' hostel at Punjab Engineering College is named after Chawla. In addition, an award of INR twenty-five thousand, a medal, and a certificate is instituted for the best student in the Aeronautical Engineering department.[20]
One of Florida Institute of Technology's student apartment complexes, Columbia Village Suites, has halls named after each of the astronauts, including Chawla.
The NASA Mars Exploration Rover mission has named seven peaks in a chain of hills, named the Columbia Hills, after each of the seven astronauts lost in the Columbia shuttle disaster. One of them is Chawla Hill, named after 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.[22]
Novelist Peter David named a shuttlecraft, the Chawla, after the astronaut in his 2007 Star Trek novel, Star Trek: The Next Generation: Before Dishonor.[23]
^Though her birth date has sometimes been reported as July 1, 1961, that date entered her official records because it was used to enroll her in school at a younger-than-normal age.
^Salim Rizvi (December 11, 2006). "Indo-US astronaut follows Kalpana's footsteps". New York: BBC. Retrieved November 20, 2012. Almost four years after the death of the first Indian-American astronaut Kalpana Chawla in the Columbia space shuttle disaster, Nasa has sent another woman of Indian origin into space.
