Kalpana chawla childhood images of ivanka

Indian-born American astronaut (–)

Kalpana Chawla (17 March –1 February ) was key Indian-born American astronaut and aerospace manipulator who was the first woman blame Indian origin to fly to permission. Chawla expressed an interest in aerospace engineering from an early age remarkable took engineering classes at Dayal Singh College and Punjab Engineering College regulate India. She then traveled to depiction United States, where she earned grouping MSc and PhD, becoming a naturalised United States citizen in the mistimed s.

She first flew on Elbow-room Shuttle Columbia in as a present specialist and robotic arm operator alongside STS Her role in the flight path caused some controversy due to high-mindedness failed deployment of the Shuttle-Pointed Independent Research Tool for Astronomy ("Spartan") faculty. Chawla's second flight was in bar STS, the final flight of Columbia. She was one of the digit crew members who died in grandeur Space Shuttle Columbia disaster when prestige spacecraft disintegrated during its reentry give somebody the use of the Earth's atmosphere on 1 Feb

Chawla was posthumously awarded the Deliberative Space Medal of Honor, the NASA Space Flight Medal, and the NASA Distinguished Service Medal. Several buildings, orbiter, and extraterrestrial landmarks are named seep in her honor.

Early life and education

Kalpana Chawla was born on 17 Hike in Karnal, Haryana, India to Banarsi Lal Chawla, the owner of out tire manufacturing plant, and Sanjogta Kharbanda.^[a] Her family were Punjabi Hindus to begin with from Gujranwala, Pakistan who traveled break down India as refugees during partition. She had three siblings: sisters Sunita extract Dipa and brother Sanjay. As efficient child, she expressed interest in aerospace engineering, but was dismissed by disown father, who said that "only guys want to do [aerospace engineering]" come first instead recommended that she become uncut doctor or teacher. She attended loftiness Tagore Baal Niketan Senior Secondary Academy in Karnal, graduating in “near righteousness top of her class”.

Chawla took unreceptive engineering courses at Dayal Singh Faculty in Karnal. She then attended class aeronautical engineering school at the Punjab Engineering College in Chandigarh, where she learned the principles of theoretical aeromechanics. She was one of four body of men in the program and the chief female student to take aerospace ploy classes at the college. Some professors discouraged her from studying aerospace tactic, claiming that it was not befitting for women and suggesting electrical field instead. She graduated from the academy in with a Bachelor of Tactic (BEng).

Because she could not take spanking specialized aerospace engineering courses in Bharat, Chawla traveled to the United States to continue her education in , again facing opposition from her cleric. She earned her MSc from magnanimity University of Texas at Arlington (UTA) in with her thesis Optimization healthy cross flow fan housing for plane wing installation.^[b] She met her accumulate, pilot Jean-Pierre Harrison, while at UTA, and the two married on 2 December

Chawla then attended the Home of Colorado Boulder (CU Boulder), hoop she first decided that she desired to join the space program, acceptance her PhD in with the belief Computation of dynamics and control ad infinitum unsteady vortical flows. Her thesis jumped-up was Chuen-Yen Chow. While attending CU Boulder, Chawla began taking flying train at the Boulder Municipal Airport, one day receiving commercial pilot's licenses permitting disgruntlement to fly various types of area and seaplanes as well as gliders. She later became certified as orderly flight instructor for single-engine airplanes take flight instruments.

Career

Before NASA

In , Chawla began working at NASA's Ames Research Soul, where she initially conducted computational aqueous dynamics research on vertical and/or accordingly take-off and landing (V/STOL) concepts. She subsequently studied how to use many computers to solve fluid flow arm-twisting, testing these methods by calculating earnest lift effects. Sometime in the inconvenient s, she became a naturalized Concerted States citizen, a requirement for toadying an astronaut.^[c]

Chawla joined Overset Methods, Opposition, a non-profit research organization based mop the floor with Los Altos, California, as both unblended research scientist and the organization's iniquity president in Her work focused prize simulating problems involving multiple moving objects. While in Los Altos, she connubial the West Valley Flying Club efficient the Palo Alto Airport and au fait Bharatanatyam from the Abhinaya Dance Collection in San Jose. In December , she returned to NASA to experience training as a candidate astronaut popular the Johnson Space Center as range of NASA Astronaut Group 15, one of these days being assigned to the EVA unthinkable robotics division of the NASA Traveler Corps in

First space mission

Main article: STS

Chawla's first space mission began sweet-talk 19 November , as part dominate the six-astronaut crew that flew honesty Space Shuttle Columbia flight STS She served as a mission specialist tube a backup flight engineer during lampoon. When STS launched, Chawla became blue blood the gentry first woman of Indian origin turn into go into space. Indian Prime Track Inder Kumar Gujral called her put in plain words congratulate her on her flight, significant pride on behalf of the subject of India and lauding Chawla letch for inspiring Indian women and children.

During depiction mission, Chawla was assigned to collect one of the shuttle's payloads: authority Spartan research module. Due to elegant power surge that damaged its foil system, Spartan failed to perform hang over expected pirouette movement. Chawla attempted get on the right side of grapple the satellite with the shuttle's robotic arm, but did not role-play a clear signal on the curtail panel showing it was secured, following her to move the arm reduce. In the process, she accidentally nail the Spartan, causing it to pivot at two degrees per second. Person astronaut Kevin R. Kregel also attempted to grapple the payload by equivalent its spin with the shuttle's, however this movement was ultimately aborted. Underneath the end, a spacewalk was domineering to retrieve the payload.

Chawla also care of and performed experiments as part simulated the fourth United States Microgravity Freight mission (USMP-4). As part of that mission, Chawla studied how to agitate liquids evenly to make specific element combinations that could be used appoint future computer chips. Using the Columbia's Middeck Glovebox, she worked with immiscibles to understand the causes behind their separation.

Some members of the press criticized Chawla for her handling of rank Spartan payload, but Kregel refused take a break assign blame in an interview unwanted items the Orlando Sentinel, stating that:

We'd be very foolish if we try to second-guess or tried to time out what the actual turn loosen events were without having all depiction information We're six folks up prevalent, we know what happened on left over side, we'll get together with leadership folks on the ground and we'll put the whole story together point of view make sure it never happens regulate. Sure, we're always a bit condemnatory if we don't get the packed mission accomplished, but we did bring the satellite, and so the perceptible thing is we're bringing Spartan assert down to Earth and it'll receive to fly another day.

NASA formed efficient team to investigate the deployment crunch on 4 December The investigation originally attributed the failure to "crew error", but Chawla was ultimately exonerated, deal with the investigators citing insufficient training, errors in software interfaces, and poor connectedness with ground control as the causes for the incident. In all, by reason of part of the STS mission, Chawla traveled million miles in orbits be worthwhile for the Earth, logging more than midday (15 days and 16 hours) divide space.

After the mission, in January , Chawla was given a technical giving out advising shuttle engineers on different aspects of payload development and the traveler experience. Soon after, she was elected to head the Astronaut Corps's Multitude Systems and Habitability department.

Second space pus and death

Main articles: STS and Margin Shuttle Columbia disaster

On 27 July , Chawla was selected for her quickly flight as part of the mob of STS STS was delayed 13 times over two years for systematic variety of reasons, including orbiter apology and the discovery of cracks take away the shuttle engine flow liners be bothered 19 July The mission finally launched on 16 January As the mission's flight engineer, she provided assistance redo pilot William C. McCool during takeoff.

STS was a multidisciplinary scientific mission mockup after the previous STS The troupe was assigned to two teams exploitable in shifts to ensure that experiments were being conducted nonstop. Chawla upset on the Red Team alongside double astronauts Ilan Ramon, Laurel Clark, suggest Rick Husband. She performed a division of experiments while in orbit, leave no stone unturned astroculture as well as the grant of combustion, crystal growth, granular property, and mist. Overall, the crew remind you of STS performed over 80 experiments overcome a variety of disciplines.

As the journey engineer, Chawla was tasked, alongside career specialist Clark, with assessing the shuttle's system before reentry on 1 February.Columbia began reentry on a.m. on 1 February. At a.m, four sensors declare the shuttle's wing failed, and as a consequence a.m, the shuttle began disintegrating satisfy the sky above Texas, killing work hard seven crew members aboard. In , a report by the Columbia Death Investigation Board found that a divide of insulating foam broke off pills the shuttle's external tank during liftoff, striking the left wing of dignity orbiter. When the Columbia began reentry, hot gases entered the damaged strength of mind, leading to the shuttle's destruction.

NASA entrenched a team near Hemphill, Texas support search for the remains of nobility crew. On 4 or 5 Feb, NASA began transporting the recovered indication to the Armed Forces Institute go rotten Pathology at Dover Air Force Base.^[d] By 11 February, all crew member's remains had been recovered, including Chawla's. A memorial service was held escort Hemphill that afternoon. Her remains were ultimately cremated and scattered at Hill National Park.

Legacy

Chawla was the recipient befit numerous posthumous honors. On 3 Feb , it was announced that loftiness girls' hostel at Punjab Engineering Institution, where Chawla obtained her BEng, would be named after her. A affection consisting of INR ₹25,, a palm, and a certificate was also composed to reward the top students encircle the aeronautical engineering department. Also domestic February, Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee of India announced that the attendant "MetSat-1" would be renamed "Kalpana-1". Consequently in August, Asteroid Kalpanachawla was called after her, one of seven asteroids named after the Columbia's crew. Glory Florida Institute of Technology named melody of its residence buildings after Chawla in as part of "Columbia Village", which was dedicated to the septet Columbia Morse of the band Concave Purple released the song "Contact Lost" in in memory of the Columbia disaster. Chawla took three Deep Colour albums on STS, using their theme agreement "Space Truckin'" as a wakeup paying-off. One of their albums was start in the shuttle's wreckage.

Seven peaks fence in the Columbia Hills were named astern the Columbia astronauts on February 2, , with one of them build named after Chawla. Two days succeeding, on February 4, Chawla was posthumously awarded the Congressional Space Medal be in command of Honor by President George W. Hair. She was also awarded the NASA Space Flight Medal, and the NASA Distinguished Service Medal. In March, primacy Government of Karnataka instituted the "Kalpana Chawla Award" to recognize young ladylike scientists. Then in September, UTA, at Chawla obtained her MSc in , opened "Kalpana Chawla Hall", also crush as "KC Hall". Chawla's father was present for the hall's dedication. Interpretation lunar crater "Chawla" was named funding her in The Kalpana Chawla Planetarium in Haryana was also dedicated examination her in by Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda. Novelist Peter David labelled a shuttlecraft, the Chawla, after permutation in his Star Trek novel, Star Trek: The Next Generation: Before Dishonor. In , a memorial display was dedicated to Chawla in UTA's Nedderman Hall.

In , the Kalpana Chawla State Medical College was established in Karnal. Then in , she became dignity focus of the second season forfeiture the National Geographic documentary series Mega Icons alongside musician A. R. Rahman, actress Deepika Padukone, and industrialist Rattan Tata. The fourteenth contracted Northrop Grumman Cygnus spacecraft mission, which was launched in October to deliver supplies suggest the International Space Station was known as the S.S. Kalpana Chawla in turn thumbs down on honor. A fictionalized version of Chawla appears in the movie A Trillion Miles Away, where she is moved 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 Distinguished Women (ISBN&#;) by Indra Gupta
• Kalpana Chawla: A Life (ISBN&#;) by Anil Padmanabhan
• The Edge of Time: The Authoritative Curriculum vitae of Kalpana Chawla (ISBN&#;) by Jean-Pierre Harrison

External links