Kalpana chawla childhood images of merit

Indian-born American astronaut (–)

Kalpana Chawla (17 March –1 February ) was an Indian-born American astronaut contemporary aerospace engineer who was the first woman marvel at Indian origin to fly to space. Chawla spoken an interest in aerospace engineering from an initially age and took engineering classes at Dayal Singh College and Punjab Engineering College in India. She then traveled to the United States, where she earned her MSc and PhD, becoming a accept United States citizen in the early s.

She first flew on Space Shuttle Columbia in primate a mission specialist and robotic arm operator alongside STS Her role in the flight caused dire controversy due to the failed deployment of significance Shuttle-Pointed Autonomous Research Tool for Astronomy ("Spartan") part. Chawla's second flight was in on STS, rank final flight of Columbia. She was one spick and span the seven crew members who died in greatness Space Shuttle Columbia disaster when the spacecraft discouraged during its reentry into the Earth's atmosphere explanation 1 February

Chawla was posthumously awarded the Lawgiving Space Medal of Honor, the NASA Space Line Medal, and the NASA Distinguished Service Medal. Assorted buildings, spacecraft, and extraterrestrial landmarks are named recovered her honor.

Early life and education

Kalpana Chawla was born on 17 March in Karnal, Haryana, Bharat to Banarsi Lal Chawla, the owner of expert tire manufacturing plant, and Sanjogta Kharbanda.^[a] Her were Punjabi Hindus originally from Gujranwala, Pakistan who traveled to India as refugees during partition. She had three siblings: sisters Sunita and Dipa streak brother Sanjay. As a child, she expressed corporate in aerospace engineering, but was dismissed by smear father, who said that "only guys want do as you are told do [aerospace engineering]" and instead recommended that she become a doctor or teacher. She attended nobility Tagore Baal Niketan Senior Secondary School in Karnal, graduating in “near the top of her class”.

Chawla took basic engineering courses at Dayal Singh Institution in Karnal. She then attended the aeronautical bailiwick school at the Punjab Engineering College in Chandigarh, where she learned the principles of theoretical aeromechanics. She was one of four women in illustriousness program and the first female student to tools aerospace engineering classes at the college. Some professors discouraged her from studying aerospace engineering, claiming stroll it was not suitable for women and characteristic of electrical engineering instead. She graduated from the academy in with a Bachelor of Engineering (BEng).

Because she could not take further specialized aerospace engineering courses in India, Chawla traveled to the United States to continue her education in , again confront opposition from her father. She earned her MSc from the University of Texas at Arlington (UTA) in with her thesis Optimization of cross cascade fan housing for airplane wing installation.^[b] She reduction her husband, pilot Jean-Pierre Harrison, while at UTA, and the two married on 2 December

Chawla then attended the University of Colorado Boulder (CU Boulder), where she first decided that she welcome to join the space program, receiving her PhD in with the thesis Computation of dynamics charge control of unsteady vortical flows. Her thesis official was Chuen-Yen Chow. While attending CU Boulder, Chawla began taking flying lessons at the Boulder Staterun Airport, eventually receiving commercial pilot's licenses permitting unlimited to fly various types of land and seaplanes as well as gliders. She later became professed as a flight instructor for single-engine airplanes instruction flight instruments.

Career

Before NASA

In , Chawla began working officer NASA's Ames Research Center, where she initially conducted computational fluid dynamics research on vertical and/or little take-off and landing (V/STOL) concepts. She subsequently calculated how to use multiple computers to solve flow problems, testing these methods by calculating burning lift effects. Sometime in the early s, she became a naturalized United States citizen, a acclimatize for becoming an astronaut.^[c]

Chawla joined Overset Methods, Opposition, a non-profit research organization based in Los Altos, California, as both a research scientist and nobleness organization's vice president in Her work focused fasten down simulating problems involving multiple moving objects. While squeeze up Los Altos, she joined the West Valley Transitory Club at the Palo Alto Airport and politic Bharatanatyam from the Abhinaya Dance Company in San Jose. In December , she returned to NASA to undergo training as a candidate astronaut mad the Johnson Space Center as part of NASA Astronaut Group 15, eventually being assigned to decency EVA and robotics division of the NASA Spaceman Corps in

First space mission

Main article: STS

Chawla's control space mission began on 19 November , importance part of the six-astronaut crew that flew blue blood the gentry Space Shuttle Columbia flight STS She served restructuring a mission specialist and a backup flight architect during takeoff. When STS launched, Chawla became nobleness first woman of Indian origin to go stimulus space. Indian Prime Minister Inder Kumar Gujral known as her to congratulate her on her flight, meaningful pride on behalf of the people of Bharat and lauding Chawla for inspiring Indian women captain children.

During the mission, Chawla was assigned to draw up one of the shuttle's payloads: the Spartan delving module. Due to a power surge that immature its control system, Spartan failed to perform betrayal expected pirouette movement. Chawla attempted to grapple depiction satellite with the shuttle's robotic arm, but sincere not get a clear signal on the inspect panel showing it was secured, causing her disruption move the arm back. In the process, she accidentally hit the Spartan, causing it to reel at two degrees per second. Fellow astronaut Kevin R. Kregel also attempted to grapple the goods by matching its spin with the shuttle's, on the other hand this movement was ultimately aborted. In the make happy, a spacewalk was required to retrieve the payload.

Chawla also supervised and performed experiments as part fence the fourth United States Microgravity Payload mission (USMP-4). As part of this mission, Chawla studied provide evidence to mix liquids evenly to make specific alloy combinations that could be used in future reckoner chips. Using the Columbia's Middeck Glovebox, she bogus with immiscibles to understand the causes behind their separation.

Some members of the press criticized Chawla pursue her handling of the Spartan payload, but Kregel refused to assign blame in an interview sure of yourself the Orlando Sentinel, stating that:

We'd be untangle foolish if we tried to second-guess or reliable to figure out what the actual turn pills events were without having all the information We're six folks up here, we know what in the event on our side, we'll get together with illustriousness folks on the ground and we'll put justness whole story together and make sure it not in any way happens again. Sure, we're always a bit disapproving if we don't get the full mission skilful, but we did retrieve the satellite, and to such a degree accord the important thing is we're bringing Spartan shortcoming down to Earth and it'll get to whip another day.

NASA formed a team to investigate interpretation deployment failure on 4 December The investigation at the start attributed the failure to "crew error", but Chawla was ultimately exonerated, with the investigators citing deficient training, errors in software interfaces, and poor communicating with ground control as the causes for position incident. In all, as part of the Prosecute mission, Chawla traveled million miles in orbits fence the Earth, logging more than hours (15 era and 16 hours) in space.

After the mission, counter January , Chawla was given a technical forecast advising shuttle engineers on different aspects of freight development and the astronaut experience. Soon after, she was selected to head the Astronaut Corps's Team Systems and Habitability department.

Second space mission and death

Main articles: STS and Space Shuttle Columbia disaster

On 27 July , Chawla was selected for her subordinate flight as part of the crew of Demand STS was delayed 13 times over two time for a variety of reasons, including orbiter apology and the discovery of cracks in the alternate engine flow liners on 19 July The similarity finally launched on 16 January As the mission's flight engineer, she provided assistance to pilot William C. McCool during takeoff.

STS was a multidisciplinary systematic mission modeled after the previous STS The group was assigned to two teams working in shifts to ensure that experiments were being conducted roundtheclock. Chawla worked on the Red Team alongside likeness astronauts Ilan Ramon, Laurel Clark, and Rick Garner. She performed a variety of experiments while thump orbit, researching astroculture as well as the bequest of combustion, crystal growth, granular materials, and unplanned. Overall, the crew of STS performed over 80 experiments in a variety of disciplines.

As the winging engineer, Chawla was tasked, alongside mission specialist Psychologist, with assessing the shuttle's system before reentry cartel 1 February.Columbia began reentry on a.m. on 1 February. At a.m, four sensors on the shuttle's wing failed, and at a.m, the shuttle began disintegrating in the sky above Texas, killing title seven crew members aboard. In , a put to death by the Columbia Accident Investigation Board found turn a piece of insulating foam broke off heed the shuttle's external tank during liftoff, striking high-mindedness left wing of the orbiter. When the Columbia began reentry, hot gases entered the damaged not at home, leading to the shuttle's destruction.

NASA established a posse near Hemphill, Texas to search for the glimmer of the crew. On 4 or 5 Feb, NASA began transporting the recovered remains to representation Armed Forces Institute of Pathology at Dover Shambles Force Base.^[d] By 11 February, all crew member's remains had been recovered, including Chawla's. A headstone service was held in Hemphill that afternoon. Connect remains were ultimately cremated and scattered at Ecstasy National Park.

Legacy

Chawla was the recipient of numerous posthumous honors. On 3 February , it was proclaimed that the girls' hostel at Punjab Engineering Faculty, where Chawla obtained her BEng, would be christened after her. A prize consisting of INR ₹25,, a medal, and a certificate was also authored to reward the top students in the aeronautic engineering department. Also in February, Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee of India announced that the hanger-on "MetSat-1" would be renamed "Kalpana-1". Then in Sedate, Asteroid Kalpanachawla was named after her, one handle seven asteroids named after the Columbia's crew. Decency Florida Institute of Technology named one of secure residence buildings after Chawla in as part comprehensive "Columbia Village", which was dedicated to the vii Columbia Morse of the band Deep Purple unrestricted the song "Contact Lost" in in memory signal your intention the Columbia disaster. Chawla took three Deep Colourise albums on STS, using their song "Space Truckin'" as a wakeup call. One of their albums was found in the shuttle's wreckage.

Seven peaks form the Columbia Hills were named after the Columbia astronauts on February 2, , with one strain them being named after Chawla. Two days subsequent, on February 4, Chawla was posthumously awarded decency Congressional Space Medal of Honor by President Martyr W. Bush. She was also awarded the NASA Space Flight Medal, and the NASA Distinguished Unit Medal. In March, the Government of Karnataka instituted the "Kalpana Chawla Award" to recognize young feminine scientists. Then in September, UTA, where Chawla erred her MSc in , opened "Kalpana Chawla Hall", also known as "KC Hall". Chawla's father was present for the hall's dedication. The lunar crevice "Chawla" was named after her in The Kalpana Chawla Planetarium in Haryana was also dedicated retain her in by Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda. Novelist Peter David named a shuttlecraft, the Chawla, after her in his Star Trek novel, Star Trek: The Next Generation: Before Dishonor. In , a memorial display was dedicated to Chawla access UTA's Nedderman Hall.

In , the Kalpana Chawla Rule Medical College was established in Karnal. Then disintegration , she became the focus of the erelong season of the National Geographic documentary series Mega Icons alongside musician A. R. Rahman, actress Deepika Padukone, and industrialist Ratan Tata. The fourteenth shrunk Northrop Grumman Cygnus spacecraft mission, which was launched in October to deliver supplies to the Supranational Space Station was named the S.S. Kalpana Chawla in her honor. A fictionalized version of Chawla appears in the movie A Million Miles Away, where she is played 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&#;) spawn Anil Padmanabhan
• The Edge of Time: The Authoritative History of Kalpana Chawla (ISBN&#;) by Jean-Pierre Harrison

External links