KALPANA CHAWLA
Kalpana Chawla was an American astronaut, born and raised in India. She was the youngest of the four children born to Banarasi Lal Chawla and Sanjyothi Chawla on March 17, 1962, in Karnal, Haryana, India. She was the first Indian-born woman to go to space.
She came from a family where everyone believes that "a person's hard work defines his character". Her father Banarasi Lal Chawla had a hard time settling down. He had done every job which can provide for his family. With his hard time settling down, his wife Sanjyothi looked after the children. At that time in India, education for girls was not thought of as necessary, but they were always supportive and made sure that their children's education. Kalpana was the youngest child in the family and her curiosity about how everything works made her adored by them. They were always supportive of Kalpana Chawla from her young age. They even changed her birth date to 1 July 1961 in order to get her into school because of underage. In her childhood, she was fond of flying and airplanes. She even waves to the pilots if the airplanes flew over their house.
EDUCATION
She graduated from Tagore School Karnal, in 1976. Her fondness for airplanes made her pursue her career in aeronautics. She went to Punjab engineering college and graduated in 1982 with a bachelor of science degree in aeronautical engineering. She then moved to the United States for a master's degree in aerospace engineering and graduated from the University of Texas at Arlington in 1984. Her thought of becoming an astronaut made her do a second master's degree and Ph.D. at the University of Colorado Boulder in 1988. Even the Space Shuttle Challenger Disaster in 1986 didn't stop her to become an astronaut.
NASA AMES RESERACH CENTER
She went on to work in NASA Ames Research Center in the field of powered-lift computational fluid dynamics. After completing the project, she worked on some other projects, and in 1993 she joined Overset Methods, Inc. as Vice President and Research Scientist with a team specializing in simulation of moving multiple body problems. She developed some techniques to perform aerodynamic optimization.
CALL BY NASA
In December 1994 she was selected by NASA as an astronaut candidate in a group of 15 astronauts. She was later assigned as a crew representative to work on the technical issues for the Astronaut Office EVA/Robotics and Computer Branches. In 1996 she was assigned as prime robotic arm operator on STS-87.
STS-87
In December 1997 she was selected as the crew representative for the six-astronaut crew who flew the STS-87. She traveled over 6.5 million miles in 376 hours and 34 minutes in 252 orbits of the earth on her first mission. During the mission, Chawla was responsible for deploying the Spartan Satellite which eventually malfunctioned, a spacewalk was done in order to capture the satellite, most of her work on missions was technical.
STS-107
In 2001 she was assigned for her second mission as part of the crew of STS-107. The mission was initially delayed due to the cracks in the shuttle engine flow liners. On 16 January 2003 Space Shuttle Columbia was launched. STS-107 Columbia was a science and research mission. Working 24 hours a day, in two alternating shifts, the crew successfully conducted approximately 80 experiments. While entering into the earth's atmosphere, the damage in the left-wing of the orbiter caused the hot atmospheric gases to penetrate and destroyed the internal wing structure of STS-107 and made it unstable, and broke the shuttle apart just 16 minutes prior to scheduled landing.
Her death was a great tragedy for everyone. She is regarded as the national hero of India. Recently Northrop Grumman, announced that their next Cygnus capsule will be named after Kalpana Chawla.
"The path from dreams to success does exist. May you have the vision to find it, the courage to get onto it, and the perseverance to follow it."
-- KALPANA CHAWLA
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