Kalpana Chawla

Kalpana Chawla
NASA astronaut
Time in space	31d 14h 54m[1]
Selection	NASA Group 15 (1994)
Missions	STS-87 STS-107
Mission insignia
Scientific career
Fields	Aerospace engineering
Thesis	Computation of Dynamics and Control of Unsteady Vortical Flows (1988)

Kalpana Chawla (17 March 1962 – 1 February 2003)^[2] was an Indian-born American astronaut and aerospace engineer who was the first woman of Indian origin to fly to space.^[3][4] She first flew on Space Shuttle Columbia in 1997 as a mission specialist and primary robotic arm operator aboard STS-87.^[5]

Chawla's second flight was on STS-107, the final flight of Columbia, in 2003. She was one of the seven crew members who died in the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster when the spacecraft disintegrated during its re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere on 1 February 2003.^[6] Chawla was posthumously awarded the Congressional Space Medal of Honor,^[7] and several streets, universities, and institutions are named in her honor.^[8][9][10]

Early life and education

Kalpana Chawla was born on 17 March 1962 in a

In 1988, Chawla joined NASA's Ames Research Center, where she initially conducted computational fluid dynamics research on vertical and/or short take-off and landing (V/STOL) concepts. Much of Chawla's research is included in technical journals and conference papers. In 1993, she joined Overset Methods, Inc. as vice president and Research Scientist specializing in simulation of moving multiple body problems. Chawla held a Certified Flight Instructor rating for airplanes, gliders and Commercial Pilot licenses for single and multi-engine airplanes, seaplanes and gliders. After becoming a naturalized U.S. citizen in April 1991, she applied for the NASA Astronaut Corps.^[18] Chawla joined the corps in March 1995 and was selected for her first flight in 1997.

First space mission of Kalpana Chawla

Chawla's first space mission began on 19 November 1997, as part of the six-astronaut crew that flew the

In 2000, Chawla was selected for her second flight as part of the crew of

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 port wing of the orbiter. Previous shuttle launches had seen minor damage from foam shedding,^[22] 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 had been confirmed.^[23]

When Columbia

Chawla's remains were identified along with those of the rest of the crew members and were cremated and scattered at Zion National Park in Utah in accordance with her wishes.^[26]

Honours and recognition

• The fourteenth contracted Northrop Grumman Cygnus spacecraft mission delivering supplies to the ISS was named the S.S. Kalpana Chawla after her.^[27][28][29]
• Asteroid 51826 Kalpana Chawla, one of seven named after the Columbia's crew^[30]
• The lunar crater Chawla is named after Kalpana Chawla.^[31]
• On 5 February 2003, the Prime Minister of India at the time, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, announced that a meteorological series of satellites, MetSat, was to be renamed "Kalpana 1". The first satellite of the series, "MetSat-1", launched by India on 12 September 2002, was renamed "Kalpana-1".^[32]
• 74th Street in the "
  Little India" of Jackson Heights, Queens, New York City, New York, United States, has been renamed "Kalpana Chawla Way" in her honor.^[8]
• In honor of her, a street was named Kalpana Chawla Street in Rayon Nagar in Sirumugai, a village in Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, India.
• The Kalpana Chawla Award was instituted by the Government of Karnataka in 2004 to recognize young women scientists.^[33]
• NASA has dedicated a supercomputer to Chawla.^[34]
• 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. Chawla knew Morse and took the band's Machine Head, featuring the song "Space Truckin'" with her on the mission. Morse's tribute song can be found on the album Bananas.^[35]
• Novelist Peter David named a shuttlecraft, the Chawla, after the astronaut in his 2007 Star Trek novel, Star Trek: The Next Generation: Before Dishonor.^[36]
• The Kalpana Chawla ISU Scholarship fund was founded by alumni of the International Space University (ISU) in 2010 to support Indian women's participation in international space education programs.^[37]
• 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.^[38]
• The Kalpana Chawla Outstanding Recent Alumni Award at the University of Colorado, given since 1983, was renamed after Chawla.^[39]
• The
  University of Texas Arlington In addition, the university dedicated the Kalpana Chawla Memorial on 3 May 2010, in Nedderman Hall, one of the primary buildings in the College of Engineering.^[41]
• The girls' hostel (what a university dormitory is called in India) 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.^[42]
• The Government of Haryana established the Kalpana Chawla Planetarium in Jyotisar, Kurukshetra.^[10]
• The
  Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, named the Kalpana Chawla Space Technology Cell in her honor.^[9][43]
• Delhi Technological University named a girls' hostel block after Chawla.^[44]
• A military housing development at Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Maryland, has been named Columbia Colony and includes a street named Chawla Way.
• A hostel block in Pondicherry University has been named after Chawla.^[45]
• Kalpana Chawla Government Medical College (KCGMC) is a Medical college located in Karnal, Haryana, India named after Chawla. Kalpana was born in Karnal.
• The National Institute of Technology, Kurukshetra named a girls' hostel after Chawla.
• The
  National Institute of Technology, Bhopal named a girls' hostel Kalpana Chawla Bhawan.^[46]
• On 1 April 2022, a satellite named after Chawla (ÑuSat 24 or "Kalpana", COSPAR 2022-033X) was launched into space as part of the Satellogic Aleph-1 constellation.

Private life

On 2 December 1983, Kalpana Chawla was married to Jean-Pierre Harrison at the age of 21.

Mega Icons (2018–2020), an Indian documentary television series on National Geographic about prominent Indian personalities, dedicated an episode to Chawla's achievements.^[48] In the 2023 movie "A Million Miles Away" about Mexican farmworker turned astronaut Jose Hernandez, Kalpana Chawla is played by actress Sarayu Blue.

See also

• List of Asian Americans § Space
• List of female spacefarers

References

Further reading

• Among the Stars!: Life and Dreams of Kalpana Chawla by Gurdeep Pandher
• India's 50 Most Illustrious Women (
  ISBN 81-88086-19-3
  ) by Indra Gupta
• Kalpana Chawla: A Life (
  ISBN 0-14-333586-3
  ) by Anil Padmanabhan
• The Edge of Time: The Authoritative Biography of Kalpana Chawla (
  ISBN 978-0976827917
  ) by Jean-Pierre Harrison

External links

Wikiquote has quotations related to Kalpana Chawla.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Kalpana Chawla.

• "Astronaut Bio: Kalpana Chawla". NASA. February 2003. Retrieved 7 May 2019.
• Aerospace Engineering
• NASA biography
• Kalpana Chawla at
  IMDb