Kalpana Chawla Short Biography
India’s Karnal is the place of birth of Kalpana Chawla (March 17, 1962 – February 1, 2003). She was the first Indian woman in space and the first Indian-American astronaut. As a mission specialist and primary robotic arm operator, she made her first space flight on the Space Shuttle Columbia in 1997. One of the seven crew members lost in the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster in 2003 was Kalpana Chawla.
Her second voyage occurred on STS-107, Columbia’s last Space Shuttle mission, in 2003. Chawla was one of the seven crew members who perished in the Columbia accident on February 1, 2003, when the spaceship exploded upon re-entering the atmosphere. Chawla received the Congressional Space Medal of Honor posthumously, and several streets, colleges, and other establishments bear her name.
EDUCATION
At Tagore Baal Niketan Senior Sec School in Karnal, Kalpana Chawla completed her previous education. In 1982, she graduated from Punjab Engineering College in Chandigarh with a Bachelor of Engineering in Aeronautical Engineering. She immigrated to the country in 1982, and in 1984 she graduated from the University of Texas at Arlington with an M.S. in aeronautical engineering. Later, Kalpana Chawla graduated from the University of Colorado in Boulder with a second M.S. in 1986 and a Ph.D. in aeronautical engineering in 1988.
NASA CAREER
In March 1995, Kalpana Chawla enlisted in the NASA Astronaut Corps, and in 1996, she was chosen for her maiden trip. She said, “You are only your intelligence,” as she was moving through the weightlessness of space. She had logged 10.67 million kilometers or 252 full rotations of the planet.
On November 19, 1997, she launched into orbit as a member of the six-person crew of Space Shuttle Columbia during STS-87. In addition to becoming the second Indian to travel in space after cosmonaut Rakesh Sharma in 1984, Kalpana Chawla was also the first woman of Indian descent to do so. In 252 orbits of the Earth during her maiden mission, Chawla covered a distance of more than 10.4 million miles and spent more than 372 hours in space.
Kalpana Chawla Death
We lost Kalpana Chawla in the Space Shuttle Columbia tragedy on February 1, 2003, when the Space Shuttle disintegrated over Texas during re-entry into the Earth’s atmosphere, killing all seven crew members. This disaster occurred just before the Space Shuttle was supposed to complete its 28th mission, STS-107.
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