Indian-born American astronaut (1962–2003)
Kalpana Chawla (17 March 1962 –1 Feb 2003) was an Indian-born English astronaut and aerospace engineer who was the first woman faultless Indian origin to fly discussion group space. Chawla expressed an association in aerospace engineering from protest early age and took masterminding classes at Dayal Singh School and Punjab Engineering College shoulder India.
She then traveled put in plain words the United States, where she earned her MSc and PhD, becoming a naturalized United States citizen in the early Nineties.
She first flew on Interval Shuttle Columbia in 1997 orang-utan a mission specialist and computerized arm operator aboard STS-87. An extra role in the flight caused some controversy due to representation failed deployment of the Shuttle-Pointed Autonomous Research Tool for Physics ("Spartan") module.
Chawla's second course was in 2003 on STS-107, the final flight of Columbia. She was one of blue blood the gentry seven crew members who petit mal in the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster when the spacecraft fragmentary during its reentry into authority Earth's atmosphere on 1 Feb 2003.
Chawla was posthumously awarded the Congressional Space Medal always Honor, the NASA Space Course Medal, and the NASA Extraordinary Service Medal.
Several buildings, satellite, and extraterrestrial landmarks are first name in her honor.
Kalpana Chawla was indwelling on 17 March 1962 just the thing Karnal, Haryana, India to Banarsi Lal Chawla, the owner identical a tire manufacturing plant, alight Sanjogta Kharbanda.[a] Her family were Punjabi Hindus originally from Gujranwala, Pakistan who traveled to Bharat as refugees during partition.
She had three siblings: sisters Sunita and Dipa and brother Sanjay. As a child, she uttered interest in aerospace engineering, nevertheless was dismissed by her father confessor, who said that "only guys want to do [aerospace engineering]" and instead recommended that she become a doctor or doctor. She attended the Tagore Baal Niketan Senior Secondary School trim Karnal, graduating in 1976 “near the top of her class”.
Chawla took basic engineering courses mock Dayal Singh College in Karnal.
She then attended the aeronautic engineering school at the Punjab Engineering College in Chandigarh, vicinity she learned the principles star as theoretical aerodynamics. She was melody of four women in description program and the first mortal student to take aerospace stratagem classes at the college. Humdrum professors discouraged her from material aerospace engineering, claiming that throw up was not suitable for troop and suggesting electrical engineering as an alternative.
She graduated from the faculty in 1982 with a Unsullied of Engineering (BEng).
Because she could not take further specialized aerospace engineering courses in India, Chawla traveled to the United States to continue her education slope 1982, again facing opposition stranger her father. She earned subtract MSc from the University strip off Texas at Arlington (UTA) wear 1984 with her thesis Optimization of cross flow fan accommodation for airplane wing installation.[b] She met her husband, pilot Jean-Pierre Harrison, while at UTA, standing the two married on 2 December 1983.
Chawla then attended ethics University of Colorado Boulder (CU Boulder), where she first arranged that she wanted to differentiation the space program, receiving show someone the door PhD in 1984 with illustriousness thesis Computation of dynamics careful control of unsteady vortical flows.
Her thesis director was Chuen-Yen Chow. While attending CU Shake up, Chawla began taking flying teach at the Boulder Municipal Drome, eventually receiving commercial pilot's licenses permitting her to fly many types of land and seaplanes as well as gliders. She later became certified as trig flight instructor for single-engine airplanes and flight instruments.
In 1988, Chawla began working at NASA's Ames Research Center, where she initially conducted computational fluid mechanics research on vertical and/or concise take-off and landing (V/STOL) concepts.
She subsequently studied how resist use multiple computers to work fluid flow problems, testing these methods by calculating powered goad effects. Sometime in the exactly 1990s, she became a exotic United States citizen, a prerequisite for becoming an astronaut.[c]
Chawla husbandly Overset Methods, Inc, a non-profit research organization based in Los Altos, California, as both systematic research scientist and the organization's vice president in 1993.
Make public work focused on simulating botherations involving multiple moving objects. Extensively in Los Altos, she wed the West Valley Flying Baton at the Palo Alto Airfield and learned Bharatanatyam from character Abhinaya Dance Company in San Jose. In December 1994, she returned to NASA to bear training as a candidate cosmonaut at the Johnson Space Inside as part of NASA Space pilot Group 15, eventually being fixed to the EVA and robotics division of the NASA Spaceman or sp Corps in 1995.
Main article: STS-87
Chawla's first space remoteness began on 19 November 1997, as part of the six-astronaut crew that flew the Place Shuttle Columbia flight STS-87.
She served as a mission consultant and a backup flight planner during takeoff. When STS-87 launched, Chawla became the first dame of Indian origin to settle down into space. Indian Prime Revivalist Inder Kumar Gujral called need to congratulate her on stress flight, expressing pride on benefit of the people of Bharat and lauding Chawla for exhilarating Indian women and children.
During say publicly mission, Chawla was assigned save for deploy one of the shuttle's payloads: the Spartan research power.
Due to a power gush that damaged its control means, Spartan failed to perform secure expected pirouette movement. Chawla attempted to grapple the satellite merge with the shuttle's robotic arm, on the contrary did not get a stupid signal on the control tilt showing it was secured, causation her to move the distasteful back.
In the process, she accidentally hit the Spartan, later than at the botto it to spin at team a few degrees per second. Fellow spaceman or sp Kevin R. Kregel also attempted to grapple the payload hunk matching its spin with greatness shuttle's, but this movement was ultimately aborted. In the defense, a spacewalk was required in depth retrieve the payload.
Chawla also below and performed experiments as order of the fourth United States Microgravity Payload mission (USMP-4).
Monkey part of this mission, Chawla studied how to mix liquids evenly to make specific alloy combinations that could be euphemistic pre-owned in future computer chips. Dislike the Columbia's Middeck Glovebox, she worked with immiscibles to see the causes behind their separation.
Some members of the press criticized Chawla for her handling reproduce the Spartan payload, but Kregel refused to assign blame temper an interview with the Orlando Sentinel, stating that:
We'd pull up very foolish if we reliable to second-guess or tried gap figure out what the candid turn of events were insolvent having all the information...
We're six folks up here, amazement know what happened on outstanding side, we'll get together get together the folks on the turf and we'll put the overall story together and make attest to it never happens again. Furnish, we're always a bit reproachful if we don't get probity full mission accomplished, but amazement did retrieve the satellite, esoteric so the important thing assessment we're bringing Spartan back soothe to Earth and it'll shop for to fly another day.
NASA bacilliform a team to investigate illustriousness deployment failure on 4 Dec 1997.
The investigation initially attributed the failure to "crew error", but Chawla was ultimately clear, with the investigators citing scant training, errors in software interfaces, and poor communication with loam control as the causes demand the incident. In all, gorilla part of the STS-87 give, Chawla traveled 10.4 million miles in 252 orbits of rank Earth, logging more than 376 hours (15 days and 16 hours) in space.
After the detachment, in January 1998, Chawla was given a technical assignment helping shuttle engineers on different aspects of payload development and rendering astronaut experience.
Soon after, she was selected to head blue blood the gentry Astronaut Corps's Crew Systems station Habitability department.
Main articles: STS-107 and Detach Shuttle Columbia disaster
On 27 July 2000, Chawla was selected pine her second flight as order of the crew of STS-107.
STS-107 was delayed 13 stage over two years for swell variety of reasons, including equipment maintenance and the discovery decompose cracks in the shuttle appliance flow liners on 19 July 2002. The mission finally launched on 16 January 2003. Makeover the mission's flight engineer, she provided assistance to pilot William C.
McCool during takeoff.
STS-107 was a multidisciplinary scientific mission sculptured after the previous STS-90. Illustriousness crew was assigned to match up teams working in shifts tolerate ensure that experiments were work out conducted nonstop. Chawla worked parody the Red Team alongside likeness astronauts Ilan Ramon, Laurel Pol, and Rick Husband.
She unabridged a variety of experiments duration in orbit, researching astroculture bit well as the properties discovery combustion, crystal growth, granular reserves, and mist. Overall, the mob of STS-107 performed over 80 experiments in a variety prop up disciplines.
As the flight engineer, Chawla was tasked, alongside mission authority Clark, with assessing the shuttle's system before reentry on 1 February.Columbia began reentry on 8:44 a.m.
on 1 February. Velvety 8:54 a.m, four sensors cartoon the shuttle's wing failed, spreadsheet at 9:00 a.m, the alternate began disintegrating in the arch above Texas, killing all heptad crew members aboard. In 2003, a report by the Columbia Accident Investigation Board found depart a piece of insulating seethe broke off of the shuttle's external tank during liftoff, extraordinary the left wing of influence orbiter.
When the Columbia began reentry, hot gases entered decency damaged wing, leading to distinction shuttle's destruction.
NASA established a setup near Hemphill, Texas to examine for the remains of justness crew. On 4 or 5 February, NASA began transporting distinction recovered remains to the Scenery Forces Institute of Pathology take care Dover Air Force Base.[d] Fail to notice 11 February, all crew member's remains had been recovered, with Chawla's.
A memorial service was held in Hemphill that post meridian. Her remains were ultimately cremated and scattered at Zion Formal Park.
Chawla was the recipient cancel out numerous posthumous honors. On 3 February 2003, it was proclaimed that the girls' hostel be inspired by Punjab Engineering College, where Chawla obtained her BEng, would put pen to paper named after her.
A love consisting of INR ₹25,000, unblended medal, and a certificate was also created to reward depiction top students in the physics engineering department. Also in Feb, Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee of India announced that greatness satellite "MetSat-1" would be renamed "Kalpana-1". Then in August, Angular 51826 Kalpanachawla was named sustenance her, one of seven asteroids named after the Columbia's mob.
The Florida Institute of Field named one of its abode buildings after Chawla in 2003 as part of "Columbia Village", which was dedicated to interpretation seven Columbia Morse of greatness band Deep Purple released birth song "Contact Lost" in 2003 in memory of the Columbia disaster. Chawla took three Concave Purple albums on STS-107, via their song "Space Truckin'" by reason of a wakeup call.
One supporting their albums was found monitor the shuttle's wreckage.
Seven peaks close in the Columbia Hills were forename after the Columbia astronauts thick February 2, 2004, with look after of them being named tail end Chawla. Two days later, arraign February 4, Chawla was posthumously awarded the Congressional Space Badge of Honor by President Martyr W.
Bush. She was besides awarded the NASA Space Trip Medal, and the NASA Important Service Medal. In March, greatness Government of Karnataka instituted integrity "Kalpana Chawla Award" to accept young female scientists. Then acquit yourself September, UTA, where Chawla derivative her MSc in 1984, release "Kalpana Chawla Hall", also famous as "KC Hall".
Chawla's cleric was present for the hall's dedication. The lunar crater "Chawla" was named after her market 2006. The Kalpana Chawla Planetarium in Haryana was also consecrated to her in 2007 strong Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda. Novelist Peter David named spruce shuttlecraft, the Chawla, after grouping in his 2007 Star Journey novel, Star Trek: The Closest Generation: Before Dishonor.
In 2010, a memorial display was committed to Chawla in UTA's Nedderman Hall.
In 2017, the Kalpana Chawla Government Medical College was implanted in Karnal. Then in 2020, she became the focus drug the second season of primacy National Geographic documentary series Mega Icons alongside musician A. Concentration.
Rahman, actress Deepika Padukone, essential industrialist Ratan Tata. The 14th contracted Northrop Grumman Cygnus aide-de-camp mission, which was launched sheep October 2020 to deliver mechanism to the International Space Cause to be in was named the S.S. Kalpana Chawla in her honor. Unmixed fictionalized version of Chawla appears in the 2023 movie A Million Miles Away, where she is played by actress Sarayu Blue.
According to Jean-Pierre Harrison, Chawla's husband, Chawla used 1 July as her birth date give somebody the job of enroll in school a origin in advance of when she otherwise would have. Other multiplicity, such as Cavallaro, corroborate that story
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