Kalpana Chawla

Template:Short description Template:Use mdy dates Template:Infobox astronaut

Kalpana Chawla (March 17, 1962 – February 1, 2003) was an Indian-American astronaut and aerospace engineer who was the first woman of Indian origin to fly to space. Chawla expressed an interest in aerospace engineering from an early 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 naturalized United States citizen in the early 1990s.

She first flew on the Space Shuttle Columbia in 1997 as a mission specialist and robotic arm operator aboard STS-87. Her role in the flight caused some controversy due to the failed deployment of the Shuttle-Pointed Autonomous Research Tool for Astronomy ("Spartan") module.Template:Sfn Chawla's second flight was in 2003 on STS-107, the final flight of Columbia. She 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.

Chawla was posthumously awarded the Congressional Space Medal of Honor, the NASA Space Flight Medal, and the NASA Distinguished Service Medal. Several buildings, spacecraft, and extraterrestrial landmarks have been named in her honor.

Early life and education

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.Template:Refn Template:Sfn Her family were Punjabi Hindus originally from Gujranwala in West Punjab, who traveled to East Punjab as refugees during the Partition of India in 1947.Template:Sfn She had three siblings: sisters Sunita and Dipa, and brother Sanjay.Template:Sfn As a child, she expressed interest in aerospace engineering, but was dismissed by her father, who said that "only guys want to do [aerospace engineering]" and instead recommended that she become a doctor or teacher.Template:Sfn She attended the Tagore Baal Niketan Senior Secondary School in Karnal, graduating in 1976 "near the top of her class".Template:Sfn

Chawla took basic engineering courses at Dayal Singh College in Karnal.Template:Sfn She then attended the aeronautical engineering school at Punjab Engineering College in Chandigarh, where she studied the principles of theoretical aerodynamics.Template:Sfn She was one of four women in the program and the first female student to take aerospace engineering classes at the college.Template:Sfn Some professors discouraged her from studying aerospace engineering, claiming that it was not suitable for women and suggesting electrical engineering instead. She graduated from the college in 1982 with a Bachelor of Engineering (BEng).Template:Sfnm

Because she could not take further specialized aerospace engineering courses in India, Chawla traveled to the United States to continue her education in 1982, again facing opposition from her father.Template:Sfn She earned her MSc from the University of Texas at Arlington (UTA) in 1984, with her thesis Optimization of cross flow fan housing for airplane wing installation.Template:Refn Template:Sfnm She met her husband, pilot Jean-Pierre Harrison, while at UTA, and the two married on December 2, 1983.Template:Sfn

Chawla then attended the University of Colorado Boulder (CU 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.Template:Sfnm Her thesis director was Chuen-Yen Chow.Template:Sfn While attending CU Boulder, Chawla began taking flying lessons at the Boulder Municipal Airport, eventually receiving commercial pilot's licenses permitting her to fly various types of land and seaplanes, as well as gliders.Template:Sfnm She later became certified as a flight instructor for single-engine airplanes and flight instruments.Template:Sfn

Career

Before NASA

File:Kalpana Chawla and husband.jpg

Chawla and her husband before the launch of STS-87

In 1988, Chawla began working at NASA's Ames Research Center, where she initially conducted computational fluid dynamics research on vertical and/or short take-off and landing (V/STOL) concepts. She subsequently studied how to use multiple computers to solve fluid flow problems, testing these methods by calculating powered lift effects.Template:Sfnm Sometime in the early 1990s, she became a naturalized United States citizen, a requirement for becoming an astronaut.Template:Refn

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.Template:Sfnm Her work focused on simulating problems involving multiple moving objects.Template:Sfn While in Los Altos, she joined the West Valley Flying Club at the Palo Alto Airport and learned Bharatanatyam from the Abhinaya Dance Company in San Jose.Template:Sfn In December 1994, she returned to NASA to undergo training as a candidate astronaut at the Johnson Space Center as part of NASA Astronaut Group 15, eventually being assigned to the EVA and robotics division of the NASA Astronaut Corps in 1995.Template:Sfnm

First space mission

Template:Main

File:Sts-87 crew.jpg

The crew of STS-87 in September 1997. From left to right - in orange: Chawla, Lindsey, Kregel, Kadeniuk; in white: Scott, Doi

Chawla's first space mission began on November 19, 1997, as part of the six-astronaut crew that flew on the Space Shuttle Columbia flight STS-87. She served as a mission specialist and a backup flight engineer during takeoff. When STS-87 launched, Chawla became the first woman of Indian origin to go into space. Indian Prime Minister Inder Kumar Gujral called her to congratulate her on her flight, expressing pride on behalf of the people of India and lauding Chawla for inspiring Indian women and children.Template:Sfn

During the mission, Chawla was assigned to deploy one of the shuttle's payloads: the Spartan research module. Due to a power surge that damaged its control system, Spartan failed to perform its expected pirouette movement. 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. In the process, she accidentally hit the Spartan, causing it to spin at two degrees per second. Fellow astronaut Kevin R. Kregel also attempted to grapple the payload by matching its spin with the shuttle's, but this movement was ultimately aborted. In the end, a spacewalk was required to retrieve the payload.Template:Sfn

Chawla also supervised and performed experiments as part of the fourth United States Microgravity Payload mission (USMP-4). As part of this mission, Chawla studied how to mix liquids evenly to create specific metal combinations that could be used in future computer chips. Using Columbia's Middeck Glovebox, she worked with immiscibles to understand the causes behind their separation.Template:Sfn

File:Sts087-706-020.jpg

Deployment of the Spartan

Some members of the press criticized Chawla for her handling of the Spartan payload, but Kregel refused to assign blame in an interview with the Orlando Sentinelstating that: Template:Blockquote

NASA formed a team to investigate the deployment failure on December 4, 1997. The investigation initially attributed the failure to "crew error", but Chawla was ultimately exonerated, with the investigators citing insufficient training, errors in software interfaces, and poor communication with ground control as the causes of the incident.Template:Sfnm In all, as part of the STS-87 mission, Chawla traveled 10.4 million miles in 252 orbits of the Earth, logging more than 376 hours (15 days and 16 hours) in space.Template:Sfn

After the mission, in January 1998, Chawla was given a technical assignment advising shuttle engineers on different aspects of payload development and the astronaut experience.Template:Sfn Soon after, she was selected to head the Astronaut Corps' Crew Systems and Habitability department.Template:Sfn

Second space mission and death

Template:Main

File:Crew of STS-107, official photo.jpg

The crew of STS-107 in October 2001. From left to right: Brown, Husband, Clark, Chawla, Anderson, McCool, Ramon

On July 27, 2000, Chawla was selected for her second flight as part of the crew of STS-107.Template:Sfn STS-107 was delayed 13 times over two years for a variety of reasons, including orbiter maintenance and the discovery of cracks in the shuttle engine flow liners on July 19, 2002. The mission finally launched on January 16, 2003.Template:Sfn As the mission's flight engineer, she provided assistance to pilot William C. McCool during takeoff.Template:Sfnm

STS-107 was a multidisciplinary scientific mission modeled after the previous STS-90.Template:Sfn The crew was assigned to two teams working in shifts to ensure that experiments were conducted nonstop. Chawla worked on the Red Team alongside fellow astronauts Ilan Ramon, Laurel Clark, and Rick Husband.Template:Sfnm She performed a variety of experiments while in orbit, researching astroculture as well as the properties of combustion, crystal growth, granular materials, and mist.Template:Sfnm Overall, the crew of STS-107 performed over 80 experiments in various disciplines.Template:Sfnm

As the flight engineer, Chawla was tasked, alongside mission specialist Clark, with assessing the shuttle's system before reentry on February 1.Template:Sfn Columbia began reentry on 8:44 a.m. on February 1. At 8:54 a.m, four sensors on the shuttle's wing failed, and at 9:00 a.m, the shuttle began disintegrating in the sky above Texas, killing all seven crew members aboard.Template:Sfnm In 2003, a report by the Columbia Accident Investigation Board found that a piece of insulating foam broke off from the shuttle's external tank during liftoff, striking the left wing of the orbiter.Template:Sfn When the Columbia began reentry, hot gases entered the damaged wing, leading to the shuttle's destruction.Template:Sfn

NASA established a team near Hemphill, Texas, to search for the remains of the crew.Template:Sfn On February 4 or 5, NASA began transporting the recovered remains to the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology at Dover Air Force Base.Template:Refn Template:Sfnm By February 11, all crew members' remains had been recovered, including Chawla's. A memorial service was held in Hemphill that afternoon.Template:Sfn Her remains were ultimately cremated and scattered at Zion National Park.Template:Sfn

Legacy

Chawla was the recipient of numerous posthumous honors. On February 3, 2003, it was announced that the girls' hostel at Punjab Engineering College, where Chawla obtained her BEng, would be named after her. A prize consisting of INR ₹25,000, a medal, and a certificate was also created to reward the top students in the aeronautical engineering department.Template:Sfn Also in February, Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee of India announced that the satellite "MetSat-1" would be renamed "Kalpana-1".Template:Sfn Then, in August, Asteroid 51826 Kalpanachawla was named after her, one of seven asteroids named after the Columbia's crew.Template:Sfn The Florida Institute of Technology named one of its residence buildings after Chawla in 2003 as part of "Columbia Village", which was dedicated to the seven Columbia astronauts.Template:Sfn Steve Morse of the band Deep Purple released the song "Contact Lost" in 2003 in memory of the Columbia disaster.Template:Sfn Chawla took three Deep Purple albums on STS-107, using their song "Space Truckin'" as a wakeup call.Template:Sfnm One of their albums was found in the shuttle's wreckage.Template:Sfn

File:Kalpana Chawla Hall Univ Texas Arlington.JPG

Kalpana Chawla Hall, University of Texas Arlington

Seven peaks in the Columbia Hills were named after the Columbia astronauts on February 2, 2004, with one of them being named after Chawla.Template:Sfn Two days later, on February 4, Chawla was posthumously awarded the Congressional Space Medal of Honor by President George W. Bush.Template:Sfn She was also awarded the NASA Space Flight Medal and the NASA Distinguished Service Medal.Template:Sfn In March, the Government of Karnataka instituted the "Kalpana Chawla Award" to recognize young female scientists.Template:Sfn Then, in September, UTA, where Chawla obtained her MSc in 1984, opened "Kalpana Chawla Hall," also known as "KC Hall". Chawla's father was present for the hall's dedication.Template:Sfn The lunar crater "Chawla" was named after her in 2006.Template:Sfnm The Kalpana Chawla Planetarium in Haryana was also dedicated to her in 2007 by Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda.Template:Sfn Novelist Peter David named a shuttlecraft, the Chawla, after her in his 2007 Star Trek novel, Star Trek: The Next Generation: Before Dishonor.Template:Sfn In 2010, a memorial display was dedicated to Chawla in UTA's Nedderman Hall.Template:Sfn

In 2017, the Kalpana Chawla Government Medical College was established in Karnal.Template:Sfn Then, in 2020, she became the focus of the second season of the National Geographic documentary series Mega Icons alongside musician A. R. Rahman, actress Deepika Padukone, and industrialist Ratan Tata.Template:Sfn The fourteenth contracted Northrop Grumman Cygnus spacecraft mission, which was launched in October 2020 to deliver supplies to the International Space Station, was named the S.S. Kalpana Chawla in her honor.Template:Sfnm A fictionalized version of Chawla appears in the 2023 movie A Million Miles Away, where she is played by actress Sarayu Blue.Template:Sfn

Notes

Template:Reflist

References

Template:Reflist

Sources

Template:Refbegin

Template:Refend

External links

Template:Wikiquote Template:Commons category

Template:Congressional Space Medal of Honor Template:STS-107 Template:NASA Astronaut Group 15 Template:Authority control