Remembering Kalpana Chawla, the first woman of Indian origin in space

Image credit: NASA

New Delhi: On this day, 1st February, 2003, Indian-origin American national and NASA astronaut Kalpana Chawla and her six crew members of the Space Shuttle Columbia were killed during their return to Earth after a 16-day science mission designated STS-107 in space.

The Space Shuttle Columbia was the first space-rated orbiter in NASA's Space Shuttle fleet.

Launched for the first time on mission STS-1 on April 12, 1981, it completed 27 missions before in over 22 years of service.

On 16 January 2003, Columbia was launched back to space and its crew members, including Kalpana had a successful flight until it disintegrated over Texas and Louisiana as it re-entered Earth's atmosphere, killing all seven astronauts on board.

The astronauts who died in the Columbia tragedy were - NASA Commander Rick Husband, NASA Pilot William McCool, NASA Payload Commander Michael Anderson, NASA Mission Specialist David Brown, NASA Mission Specialist Kalpana Chawla, NASA Mission Specialist Laurel Clark and Israeli Payload Specialist Ilan Ramon.

Kalpana, who was born on March 17, 1962, was the first woman of Indian origin in space.

After graduating from Tagore School, Karnal in 1976, she completed her bachelor's degree in aeronautical engineering from Punjab Engineering College in 1982. In 1982, she moved to the US where she obtained the Master of Science degree in aerospace engineering from the University of Texas at Arlington in 1984.

In 1988, Kalpana began working at the NASA Ames Research Center, where she did Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) research on Vertical/Short Takeoff and Landing concepts. She first travelled to space on November 19, 1997, as part of the six-astronaut crew that flew the Space Shuttle Columbia flight STS-87.