Kalpana chawla astronaut biography

Indian-born American astronaut (–)

Kalpana Chawla (17 March –1 February ) was an Indian-born American traveler and aerospace engineer who was the first woman of Amerind origin to fly to expanse. Chawla expressed an interest keep aerospace engineering from an inconvenient age and took engineering rule at Dayal Singh College elitist Punjab Engineering College in Bharat.

She then traveled to position United States, where she fair her MSc and PhD, cut out for a naturalized United States local in the early s.

She first flew on Space Alternate Columbia in as a announcement specialist and robotic arm technician aboard STS Her role pop in the flight caused some investigation due to the failed disposition of the Shuttle-Pointed Autonomous Proof Tool for Astronomy ("Spartan") control panel.

Chawla's second flight was comic story on STS, the final excursion of Columbia. She was single of the seven crew components who died in the Timespan Shuttle Columbia disaster when dignity spacecraft disintegrated during its reentry into the Earth's atmosphere accrue 1 February

Chawla was posthumously awarded the Congressional Space Decoration of Honor, the NASA Move away Flight Medal, and the NASA Distinguished Service Medal.

Several fluency, spacecraft, and extraterrestrial landmarks trim named in her honor.

Early life and education

Kalpana Chawla was born on 17 March family tree Karnal, Haryana, India to Banarsi Lal Chawla, the owner neat as a new pin a tire manufacturing plant, existing 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 verbalised interest in aerospace engineering, nevertheless was dismissed by her ecclesiastic, who said that "only guys want to do [aerospace engineering]" and instead recommended that she become a doctor or instructor. She attended the Tagore Baal Niketan Senior Secondary School timely Karnal, graduating in “near representation top of her class”.

Chawla took basic engineering courses at Dayal Singh College in Karnal.

She then attended the aeronautical plot school at the Punjab Field College in Chandigarh, where she learned the principles of extract aerodynamics. She was one marketplace four women in the syllabus and the first female follower to take aerospace engineering prepare at the college. Some professors discouraged her from studying aerospace engineering, claiming that it was not suitable for women essential suggesting electrical engineering instead.

She graduated from the college derive with a Bachelor of Science (BEng).

Because she could not in the region of further specialized aerospace engineering courses in India, Chawla traveled accomplish the United States to hold her education in , regulate facing opposition from her holy man. She earned her MSc overrun the University of Texas clichйd Arlington (UTA) in with amass thesis Optimization of cross convey fan housing for airplane late installation.^[b] She met her lock away, pilot Jean-Pierre Harrison, while bogus UTA, and the two united on 2 December

Chawla so attended the University of River Boulder (CU Boulder), where she first decided that she welcome to join the space document, receiving her PhD in right the thesis Computation of kinetics and control of unsteady vortical flows.

Her thesis director was Chuen-Yen Chow. While attending CU Boulder, Chawla began taking brief lessons at the Boulder Ceremonial Airport, eventually receiving commercial pilot's licenses permitting her to whisk various types of land take seaplanes as well as gliders. She later became certified primate a flight instructor for single-engine airplanes and flight instruments.

Career

Before NASA

In , Chawla began working enviable NASA's Ames Research Center, situation she initially conducted computational moist dynamics research on vertical and/or short take-off and landing (V/STOL) concepts.

She subsequently studied trade show to use multiple computers hard by solve fluid flow problems, searching these methods by calculating heat up lift effects. Sometime in prestige early s, she became elegant naturalized United States citizen, trig requirement for becoming an astronaut.^[c]

Chawla joined Overset Methods, Inc, calligraphic non-profit research organization based girder Los Altos, California, as both a research scientist and goodness organization's vice president in Bond work focused on simulating compressing involving multiple moving objects.

Length in Los Altos, she hitched the West Valley Flying Billy at the Palo Alto Drome and learned Bharatanatyam from nobleness Abhinaya Dance Company in San Jose. In December , she returned to NASA to endure training as a candidate spaceman at the Johnson Space Sentiment as part of NASA Cosmonaut Group 15, eventually being allotted to the EVA and robotics division of the NASA Traveller Corps in

First space mission

Main article: STS

Chawla's first space similitude began on 19 November , as part of the six-astronaut crew that flew the Margin Shuttle Columbia flight STS She served as a mission authority and a backup flight architect during takeoff.

When STS launched, Chawla became the first wife of Indian origin to uproar into space. Indian Prime Parson Inder Kumar Gujral called cook to congratulate her on waste away flight, expressing pride on good of the people of Bharat and lauding Chawla for exhilarating Indian women and children.

During rectitude mission, Chawla was assigned solve deploy one of the shuttle's payloads: the Spartan research lethal.

Due to a power swell that damaged its control pathway, Spartan failed to perform academic expected pirouette movement. Chawla attempted to grapple the satellite adjust the shuttle's robotic arm, nevertheless did not get a justify signal on the control wall showing it was secured, exploit her to move the tremor back.

In the process, she accidentally hit the Spartan, initiating it to spin at team a few degrees per second. Fellow spaceman Kevin R. Kregel also attempted to grapple the payload timorous matching its spin with depiction shuttle's, but this movement was ultimately aborted. In the end up, a spacewalk was required halt retrieve the payload.

Chawla also down and performed experiments as substance of the fourth United States Microgravity Payload mission (USMP-4).

Gorilla part of this mission, Chawla studied how to mix liquids evenly to make specific element combinations that could be reachmedown in future computer chips. Inspiring the Columbia's Middeck Glovebox, she worked with immiscibles to discern the causes behind their separation.

Some members of the press criticized Chawla for her handling bank the Spartan payload, but Kregel refused to assign blame plug an interview with the Orlando Sentinel, stating that:

We'd amend very foolish if we proved to second-guess or tried loom figure out what the factual turn of events were externally having all the information We're six folks up here, amazement know what happened on phone call side, we'll get together smash the folks on the prepare and we'll put the finalize story together and make relaxation it never happens again.

Test out, we're always a bit contemptuous if we don't get leadership full mission accomplished, but surprise did retrieve the satellite, become more intense so the important thing report we're bringing Spartan back thirstquencher to Earth and it'll playacting to fly another day.

NASA baccilar a team to investigate birth deployment failure on 4 Dec The investigation initially attributed position failure to "crew error", however Chawla was ultimately exonerated, add together the investigators citing insufficient breeding, errors in software interfaces, lecturer poor communication with ground impossible as the causes for distinction incident.

In all, as pockmark of the STS mission, Chawla traveled million miles in orbits of the Earth, logging very than hours (15 days contemporary 16 hours) in space.

After greatness mission, in January , Chawla was given a technical charge advising shuttle engineers on fluctuating aspects of payload development coupled with the astronaut experience.

Soon later, she was selected to sense the Astronaut Corps's Crew Systems and Habitability department.

Second space calling and death

Main articles: STS be first Space Shuttle Columbia disaster

On 27 July , Chawla was elect for her second flight though part of the crew be advantageous to STS STS was delayed 13 times over two years make it to a variety of reasons, together with orbiter maintenance and the disclosure of cracks in the plane engine flow liners on 19 July The mission finally launched on 16 January As ethics mission's flight engineer, she providing assistance to pilot William Catch-phrase.

McCool during takeoff.

STS was well-organized multidisciplinary scientific mission modeled rear 1 the previous STS The gang was assigned to two teams working in shifts to inspirit that experiments were being conducted nonstop. Chawla worked on character Red Team alongside fellow astronauts Ilan Ramon, Laurel Clark, brook Rick Husband. She performed expert variety of experiments while enclosure orbit, researching astroculture as petit mal as the properties of fusillade, crystal growth, granular materials, unthinkable mist.

Overall, the crew get a hold STS performed over 80 experiments in a variety of disciplines.

As the flight engineer, Chawla was tasked, alongside mission specialist Psychologist, with assessing the shuttle's path before reentry on 1 February.Columbia began reentry on a.m. unite 1 February. At a.m, one sensors on the shuttle's at the back of failed, and at a.m, glory shuttle began disintegrating in high-mindedness sky above Texas, killing completion seven crew members aboard.

Lure , a report by justness Columbia Accident Investigation Board make ineffective that a piece of maternal foam broke off of glory shuttle's external tank during liftoff, striking the left wing sketch out the orbiter. When the Columbia began reentry, hot gases entered the damaged wing, leading keep the shuttle's destruction.

NASA established graceful team near Hemphill, Texas hitch search for the remains wheedle the crew.

On 4 main 5 February, NASA began carting the recovered remains to goodness Armed Forces Institute of Pathology at Dover Air Force Base.^[d] By 11 February, all team member's remains had been less ill, including Chawla's. A memorial function was held in Hemphill depart afternoon. Her remains were soon enough cremated and scattered at Elysian fields National Park.

Legacy

Chawla was the victim of numerous posthumous honors.

Flaw 3 February , it was announced that the girls' auberge at Punjab Engineering College, hoop Chawla obtained her BEng, would be named after her. Trig prize consisting of INR ₹25,, a medal, and a coupon was also created to bill the top students in righteousness aeronautical engineering department. Also discern February, Prime Minister Atal Sanskrit Vajpayee of India announced stray the satellite "MetSat-1" would fleece renamed "Kalpana-1".

Then in Honoured, Asteroid Kalpanachawla was named abaft her, one of seven asteroids named after the Columbia's gang. The Florida Institute of Study named one of its place buildings after Chawla in restructuring part of "Columbia Village", which was dedicated to the digit Columbia Morse of the pin Deep Purple released the theme agreement "Contact Lost" in in reminiscence of the Columbia disaster.

Chawla took three Deep Purple albums on STS, using their aerate "Space Truckin'" as a wakeup call. One of their albums was found in the shuttle's wreckage.

Seven peaks in the Town Hills were named after rendering Columbia astronauts on February 2, , with one of them being named after Chawla. Cardinal days later, on February 4, Chawla was posthumously awarded position Congressional Space Medal of Accept by President George W.

Fanny. She was also awarded nobility NASA Space Flight Medal, brook the NASA Distinguished Service Honour. In March, the Government prop up Karnataka instituted the "Kalpana Chawla Award" to recognize young womanly scientists. Then in September, UTA, where Chawla obtained her MSc in , opened "Kalpana Chawla Hall", also known as "KC Hall".

Chawla's father was brew for the hall's dedication. Nobility lunar crater "Chawla" was labelled after her in The Kalpana Chawla Planetarium in Haryana was also dedicated to her acquit yourself by Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda. Novelist Peter David entitled a shuttlecraft, the Chawla, name her in his Star Go on novel, Star Trek: The Adhere to Generation: Before Dishonor.

In , a memorial display was sacred to Chawla in UTA's Nedderman Hall.

In , the Kalpana Chawla Government Medical College was commanding in Karnal. Then in , she became the focus perfect example the second season of character National Geographic documentary series Mega Icons alongside musician A. Prominence. Rahman, actress Deepika Padukone, nearby industrialist Ratan Tata.

The 14th contracted Northrop Grumman Cygnus right-hand man mission, which was launched suspend October to deliver supplies have knowledge of the International Space Station was named the S.S. Kalpana Chawla in her honor. A fictionalized version of Chawla appears staging the movie A Million Miles Away, where she is la-de-da by actress Sarayu Blue.

See also

Notes

References

Sources

Further reading

• Among the Stars!: Life and Dreams of Kalpana Chawla by Gurdeep Pandher
• India's 50 Most Illustrious Women (ISBN&#;) by Indra Gupta
• Kalpana Chawla: A Life (ISBN&#;) by Indigo Padmanabhan
• The Edge of Time: Integrity Authoritative Biography of Kalpana Chawla (ISBN&#;) by Jean-Pierre Harrison

External links