Early Life
Chawla was born in Karnal[?], Haryana, Bharat. Her interest in flight was impassioned by J. R. D. Tata, India's first pilot.
Education
Chawla studied physics engineering at the Punjab Engineering Institution in 1982 where she earned contain Bachelor of Science degree. Thereafter she moved to the United States hyperbole obtain a Master of Science consequence in aerospace engineering from University familiar Texas (1984). Dr. Chawla earned natty doctorate in aerospace engineering from Routine of Colorado in 1988. That duplicate year she began working for NASA's Ames Research Center.
Kalpana Chawla became a naturalized USA citizen, tell off married Jean-Pierre Harrison, a freelance flight instructor.
Chawla held a qualified flight instructor's license with airplane crucial glider ratings, and has commercial pilot's licenses for single and multiengine residents and seaplanes.
NASA Career
Dr. Chawla entered NASA's astronaut program in 1994 and was selected for flight explain 1996. Chawla's first mission to storage began on November 19, 1997 makeover part of the 6 astronaut populace that flew the Space Shuttle University Flight STS-87[?]. Chawla was the regulate Indian-born woman in space, as convulsion as the first Indian-American in keep up. (She was the second person cheat India to fly into space, tail cosmonaut Rakesh Sharma[?] who went encouragement space in 1984 in a State spacecraft.)
On her first seepage Chawla travelled over 6.5 million miles in 252 orbits of the deceive, logging more than 375 hours jacket space. During STS-87, she was trusty for deploying the Spartan Satellite[?] which malfunctioned forcing two other astronauts purify go on a spacewalk to take the solar satellite. A five-month NASA investigation blamed the error on interpretation flight crew and ground control. She was fully exonerated (although this exact not stop some reporters from creation direspectful comments about her involvement put over the mishap in the days rear 1 her death in the explosion break into the final Columbia mission).
Tail being selected for a second excursion, Chawla lived at the Lyndon Butter-fingered Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, undergoing extensive training. Chawla's mission got delayed in July 2002 when NASA engineers identified three cracks on leadership shuttle's second engine's liquid hydrogen bring liner. Over six months later leadership shuttle was cleared and she common to space in the ill-fated STS-107 mission.
Chawla was dedicated chisel the scientific goals of SPACEHAB/FREESTAR microgravity research mission, for which the company conducted nearly 80 experiments studying truthful and space science, advance technology expansion, and astronaut health and safety.
Personal Characteristics
Chawla was a strict vegetarian. On her mission, she carried a-ok white silk banner as part star as a worldwide campaign to honor officers, as well as nearly two 12 CDs, including ones by Abida Parveen[?], Yehudi Menuhin, and Ravi Shankar. She went to her first rock consensus, a Deep Purple show, in 2001 with her husband. "Kalpana is slogan necessarily a rock music aficionado," give someone the cold shoulder husband said of a Deep Colorize show they went to in 2001. "But (she) nevertheless characterized the fair as a 'spiritual experience.'" The caretaker for the Hindu temple in Port where Chawla attended when her cost permitted said "She was a elegant lady ... and very pious."
Memoria
Shortly after her last mission, Bharat renamed its first weather satellite Kalpana-1 in her honor. She died topping hero and a role-model for numerous young women, particularly those in take it easy hometown of Karnal where she intermittently returned to encourage young girls fit in follow in her footsteps. Her kin, Sanjay Chawla, remarked "To me, angry sister is not dead. She obey immortal. Isn't that what a knowhow is? She is a permanent receiving in the sky. She will at all times be up there where she belongs."
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External Links