Houston, Jan 17: Seven astronauts, including India-born Kalpana Chawla, began their first full day of round-the-clock science experiments aboard space shuttle Columbia early on Friday.


The crew are on a 16-day scientific research mission in which they will conduct or monitor various experiments, including some by students who are curious about the effects of weightlessness on a variety of insects and rodents. The Indian American space engineer Chawla and the other six astronauts launched on Thursday from Cape Canaveral, Florida under extremely tight security.
It is the first time in three years a space shuttle was launched and not headed to the international space station or the Hubble Space Telescope.

While orbiting Earth, the astronauts will work in a 6 m long by 4.2 m wide by 3.3 m high pressurised research module located in the shuttle`s payload bay. It houses equipment for 59 of the more than 80 experiments from around the world that will be conducted during Columbia`s mission.


The shuttle`s crew is divided into two teams, each working 12 hours per day.

Early on Friday, one team members slept while the other astronauts finished setting up the research module and began conducting scientific experiments, including one on how the heart and lungs function in space and how the nervous system controls them. Bureau Report