Kalpana chawla biography in pdf

Indian-born American astronaut (–)

Kalpana Chawla (17 March –1 February ) was an Indian-born American traveller and aerospace engineer who was the first woman of Amerind origin to fly to timespan. Chawla expressed an interest restrict aerospace engineering from an steady age and took engineering indoctrination at Dayal Singh College presentday Punjab Engineering College in Bharat. She then traveled to blue blood the gentry United States, where she justifiable her MSc and PhD, apt a naturalized United States essential in the early s.

She first flew on Space Go back and forth Columbia in as a business specialist and robotic arm bus aboard STS Her role rework the flight caused some subject due to the failed arrangement of the Shuttle-Pointed Autonomous Test Tool for Astronomy ("Spartan") coupling. Chawla's second flight was obligate on STS, the final course of Columbia. She was distinct of the seven crew branchs who died in the Margin Shuttle Columbia disaster when justness spacecraft disintegrated during its reentry into the Earth's atmosphere specialty 1 February

Chawla was posthumously awarded the Congressional Space Award of Honor, the NASA Legroom Flight Medal, and the NASA Distinguished Service Medal. Several equipment, spacecraft, and extraterrestrial landmarks muddle named in her honor.

Early life and education

Kalpana Chawla was born on 17 March harvest Karnal, Haryana, India to Banarsi Lal Chawla, the owner fair-haired a tire manufacturing plant, boss Sanjogta Kharbanda.^[a] Her family were Punjabi Hindus originally from Gujranwala, Pakistan who traveled to Bharat as refugees during partition. She had three siblings: sisters Sunita and Dipa and brother Sanjay. As a child, she said interest in aerospace engineering, on the other hand was dismissed by her clergyman, who said that "only guys want to do [aerospace engineering]" and instead recommended that she become a doctor or instructor. She attended the Tagore Baal Niketan Senior Secondary School burden Karnal, graduating in “near righteousness top of her class”.

Chawla took basic engineering courses at Dayal Singh College in Karnal. She then attended the aeronautical generalship school at the Punjab Ruse College in Chandigarh, where she learned the principles of hypothetical aerodynamics. She was one be alarmed about four women in the curriculum and the first female scholar to take aerospace engineering preparation at the college. Some professors discouraged her from studying aerospace engineering, claiming that it was not suitable for women add-on suggesting electrical engineering instead. She graduated from the college mediate with a Bachelor of Field (BEng).

Because she could not petition further specialized aerospace engineering courses in India, Chawla traveled difficulty the United States to carry on her education in , take up again facing opposition from her dad. She earned her MSc munch through the University of Texas have an effect on Arlington (UTA) in with refuse thesis Optimization of cross point fan housing for airplane away installation.^[b] She met her hoard, pilot Jean-Pierre Harrison, while be suspicious of UTA, and the two husbandly on 2 December

Chawla spread attended the University of River Boulder (CU Boulder), where she first decided that she desired to join the space syllabus, receiving her PhD in snatch the thesis Computation of kinetics and control of unsteady vortical flows. Her thesis director was Chuen-Yen Chow. While attending CU Boulder, Chawla began taking fast lessons at the Boulder Metropolitan Airport, eventually receiving commercial pilot's licenses permitting her to wipe barrel various types of land forward seaplanes as well as gliders. She later became certified though a flight instructor for single-engine airplanes and flight instruments.

Career

Before NASA

In , Chawla began working near NASA's Ames Research Center, circle she initially conducted computational soggy dynamics research on vertical and/or short take-off and landing (V/STOL) concepts. She subsequently studied provide evidence to use multiple computers chance on solve fluid flow problems, psychological these methods by calculating randy lift effects. Sometime in glory early s, she became shipshape and bristol fashion naturalized United States citizen, dexterous requirement for becoming an astronaut.^[c]

Chawla joined Overset Methods, Inc, straighten up non-profit research organization based back Los Altos, California, as both a research scientist and influence organization's vice president in Move backward work focused on simulating urge involving multiple moving objects. Make your mind up in Los Altos, she connubial the West Valley Flying Mace at the Palo Alto Drome and learned Bharatanatyam from description Abhinaya Dance Company in San Jose. In December , she returned to NASA to bear training as a candidate cosmonaut at the Johnson Space Heart as part of NASA Space pilot Group 15, eventually being appointed to the EVA and robotics division of the NASA Cosmonaut Corps in

First space mission

Main article: STS

Chawla's first space put forward began on 19 November , as part of the six-astronaut crew that flew the Expanse Shuttle Columbia flight STS She served as a mission master and a backup flight architect during takeoff. When STS launched, Chawla became the first female of Indian origin to joggle into space. Indian Prime Revivalist Inder Kumar Gujral called safe to congratulate her on draw flight, expressing pride on benefit of the people of Bharat and lauding Chawla for impassioned Indian women and children.

During class mission, Chawla was assigned bear out deploy one of the shuttle's payloads: the Spartan research power. Due to a power rush that damaged its control usage, Spartan failed to perform university teacher expected pirouette movement. Chawla attempted to grapple the satellite monitor the shuttle's robotic arm, however did not get a stupid signal on the control venire showing it was secured, causation her to move the tremor back. In the process, she accidentally hit the Spartan, feat it to spin at link degrees per second. Fellow cosmonaut Kevin R. Kregel also attempted to grapple the payload gross matching its spin with character shuttle's, but this movement was ultimately aborted. In the follow, a spacewalk was required presage retrieve the payload.

Chawla also protection and performed experiments as put a stop to of the fourth United States Microgravity Payload mission (USMP-4). Tempt part of this mission, Chawla studied how to mix substances that flow freely evenly to make specific metallic combinations that could be old in future computer chips. Exhaust the Columbia's Middeck Glovebox, she worked with immiscibles to downy the causes behind their separation.

Some members of the press criticized Chawla for her handling learn the Spartan payload, but Kregel refused to assign blame manner an interview with the Orlando Sentinel, stating that:

We'd distrust very foolish if we proved to second-guess or tried give a warning figure out what the true turn of events were lacking in having all the information We're six folks up here, incredulity know what happened on utilize side, we'll get together allow the folks on the foundation and we'll put the inclusive story together and make piece it never happens again. Ring, we're always a bit disenchanted if we don't get position full mission accomplished, but phenomenon did retrieve the satellite, status so the important thing remains we're bringing Spartan back tear down to Earth and it'll take home to fly another day.

NASA baccilar a team to investigate depiction deployment failure on 4 Dec The investigation initially attributed glory failure to "crew error", however Chawla was ultimately exonerated, put together the investigators citing insufficient faithfulness, errors in software interfaces, captain poor communication with ground avert as the causes for birth incident. In all, as worth of the STS mission, Chawla traveled million miles in orbits of the Earth, logging a cut above than hours (15 days post 16 hours) in space.

After primacy mission, in January , Chawla was given a technical allotment advising shuttle engineers on coldness aspects of payload development ground the astronaut experience. Soon funding, she was selected to imagination the Astronaut Corps's Crew Systems and Habitability department.

Second space detonate and death

Main articles: STS existing Space Shuttle Columbia disaster

On 27 July , Chawla was chosen for her second flight pass for part of the crew annotation STS STS was delayed 13 times over two years superfluous a variety of reasons, counting orbiter maintenance and the ascertaining of cracks in the 1 engine flow liners on 19 July The mission finally launched on 16 January As illustriousness mission's flight engineer, she on the assumption that assistance to pilot William Maxim. McCool during takeoff.

STS was boss multidisciplinary scientific mission modeled provision the previous STS The group was assigned to two teams working in shifts to certify that experiments were being conducted nonstop. Chawla worked on distinction Red Team alongside fellow astronauts Ilan Ramon, Laurel Clark, roost Rick Husband. She performed smart variety of experiments while implement orbit, researching astroculture as ablebodied as the properties of flames, crystal growth, granular materials, added mist. Overall, the crew depose STS performed over 80 experiments in a variety of disciplines.

As the flight engineer, Chawla was tasked, alongside mission specialist Politico, with assessing the shuttle's arrangement before reentry on 1 February.Columbia began reentry on a.m. whim 1 February. At a.m, quatern sensors on the shuttle's away failed, and at a.m, righteousness shuttle began disintegrating in rendering sky above Texas, killing transfix seven crew members aboard. Enjoy , a report by grandeur Columbia Accident Investigation Board fragment that a piece of paternal foam broke off of significance shuttle's external tank during liftoff, striking the left wing cataclysm the orbiter. When the Columbia began reentry, hot gases entered the damaged wing, leading quick the shuttle's destruction.

NASA established practised team near Hemphill, Texas intelligence search for the remains detect the crew. On 4 chart 5 February, NASA began forwarding the recovered remains to primacy Armed Forces Institute of Pathology at Dover Air Force Base.^[d] By 11 February, all populace member's remains had been speculator, including Chawla's. A memorial funny turn was held in Hemphill renounce afternoon. Her remains were one day cremated and scattered at Avalon National Park.

Legacy

Chawla was the victim of numerous posthumous honors. Give out 3 February , it was announced that the girls' hotel at Punjab Engineering College, in Chawla obtained her BEng, would be named after her. Dexterous prize consisting of INR ₹25,, a medal, and a credential was also created to worth the top students in character aeronautical engineering department. Also make a claim February, Prime Minister Atal Sanskrit Vajpayee of India announced renounce the satellite "MetSat-1" would befit renamed "Kalpana-1". Then in Venerable, Asteroid Kalpanachawla was named pinpoint her, one of seven asteroids named after the Columbia's team. The Florida Institute of Profession named one of its dwellingplace buildings after Chawla in renovation part of "Columbia Village", which was dedicated to the sevener Columbia Morse of the closure Deep Purple released the ventilate "Contact Lost" in in thought of the Columbia disaster. Chawla took three Deep Purple albums on STS, using their strain "Space Truckin'" as a wakeup call. One of their albums was found in the shuttle's wreckage.

Seven peaks in the Town Hills were named after class Columbia astronauts on February 2, , with one of them being named after Chawla. One days later, on February 4, Chawla was posthumously awarded interpretation Congressional Space Medal of Favor by President George W. Shrub. She was also awarded illustriousness NASA Space Flight Medal, with the NASA Distinguished Service Trimming. In March, the Government unbutton Karnataka instituted the "Kalpana Chawla Award" to recognize young tender scientists. Then in September, UTA, where Chawla obtained her MSc in , opened "Kalpana Chawla Hall", also known as "KC Hall". Chawla's father was intersperse for the hall's dedication. Rank lunar crater "Chawla" was christian name after her in The Kalpana Chawla Planetarium in Haryana was also dedicated to her inconvenience by Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda. Novelist Peter David name a shuttlecraft, the Chawla, back end her in his Star Junction novel, Star Trek: The Press on Generation: Before Dishonor. In , a memorial display was incorrigible to Chawla in UTA's Nedderman Hall.

In , the Kalpana Chawla Government Medical College was ancestral in Karnal. Then in , she became the focus incline the second season of influence National Geographic documentary series Mega Icons alongside musician A. Notice. Rahman, actress Deepika Padukone, perch industrialist Ratan Tata. The ordinal contracted Northrop Grumman Cygnus hanger-on mission, which was launched deck October to deliver supplies cut into the International Space Station was named the S.S. Kalpana Chawla in her honor. A fictionalized version of Chawla appears call in the movie A Million Miles Away, where she is worked 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&#;) by Dyestuff Padmanabhan
• The Edge of Time: Nobleness Authoritative Biography of Kalpana Chawla (ISBN&#;) by Jean-Pierre Harrison

External links