1. Kalpana Chawla was an Indian-American astronaut and aerospace engineer who was the first woman of Indian origin to fly to space.
32 Facts About Kalpana Chawla
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Kalpana Chawla then traveled to the United States, where she earned her MSc and PhD, becoming a naturalized United States citizen in the early 1990s.
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Kalpana Chawla first flew on the Space Shuttle Columbia in 1997 as a mission specialist and robotic arm operator aboard STS-87.
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Kalpana Chawla was one of the seven crew members who died in the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster when the spacecraft disintegrated during its reentry into Earth's atmosphere on February 1,2003.
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Kalpana Chawla was posthumously awarded the Congressional Space Medal of Honor, the NASA Space Flight Medal, and the NASA Distinguished Service Medal.
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Kalpana Chawla was born on March 17,1962, in Karnal, Haryana, India, to Banarsi Lal Chawla, the owner of a tire manufacturing plant, and Sanjogta Kharbanda.
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Kalpana Chawla's family were Punjabi Hindus originally from Gujranwala in West Punjab, who traveled to East Punjab as refugees during the Partition of India in 1947.
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Kalpana Chawla had three siblings: sisters Sunita and Dipa, and brother Sanjay.
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Kalpana Chawla attended the Tagore Baal Niketan Senior Secondary School in Karnal, graduating in 1976 "near the top of her class".
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Kalpana Chawla took basic engineering courses at Dayal Singh College in Karnal.
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Kalpana Chawla then attended the aeronautical engineering school at Punjab Engineering College in Chandigarh, where she studied the principles of theoretical aerodynamics.
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Kalpana Chawla was one of four women in the program and the first female student to take aerospace engineering classes at the college.
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Kalpana Chawla graduated from the college in 1982 with a Bachelor of Engineering.
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Kalpana Chawla earned her MSc from the University of Texas at Arlington in 1984, with her thesis Optimization of cross flow fan housing for airplane wing installation.
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Kalpana Chawla met her husband, pilot Jean-Pierre Harrison, while at UTA, and the two married on December 2,1983.
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Kalpana Chawla then attended the University of Colorado Boulder, where she first decided that she wanted to join the space program, receiving her PhD in 1988 with the thesis Computation of dynamics and control of unsteady vortical flows.
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Kalpana Chawla later became certified as a flight instructor for single-engine airplanes and flight instruments.
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Kalpana Chawla subsequently studied how to use multiple computers to solve fluid flow problems, testing these methods by calculating powered lift effects.
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Kalpana Chawla joined Overset Methods, Inc, a non-profit research organization based in Los Altos, California, as both a research scientist and the organization's vice president in 1993.
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Kalpana Chawla's work focused on simulating problems involving multiple moving objects.
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Kalpana Chawla served as a mission specialist and a backup flight engineer during takeoff.
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When STS-87 launched, Kalpana Chawla became the first woman of Indian origin to go into space.
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Kalpana Chawla attempted to grapple the satellite with the shuttle's robotic arm but did not receive a clear signal on the control panel showing it was secured, causing her to move the arm back.
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Kalpana Chawla supervised and performed experiments as part of the fourth United States Microgravity Payload mission.
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On July 27,2000, Kalpana Chawla was selected for her second flight as part of the crew of STS-107.
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Kalpana Chawla worked on the Red Team alongside fellow astronauts Ilan Ramon, Laurel Clark, and Rick Husband.
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Kalpana Chawla performed a variety of experiments while in orbit, researching astroculture as well as the properties of combustion, crystal growth, granular materials, and mist.
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Kalpana Chawla's remains were ultimately cremated and scattered at Zion National Park.
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On February 3,2003, it was announced that the girls' hostel at Punjab Engineering College, where Kalpana Chawla obtained her BEng, would be named after her.
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Kalpana Chawla took three Deep Purple albums on STS-107, using their song "Space Truckin'" as a wakeup call.
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Kalpana Chawla was awarded the NASA Space Flight Medal and the NASA Distinguished Service Medal.
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The lunar crater "Kalpana Chawla" was named after her in 2006.