Chawla’s legacy has lived on, however. In particular, her talent and hard work have inspired young people in India and around Earth to consider careers in spaceflight.
Education:
Chawla went to Tagore Baal Niketan Senior Secondary School in Karnal for her primary and secondary schooling in India. NASA encouraged the school to participate in their Summer Space Experience Program after Chawla went on to become a NASA astronaut. Chawla was adamant about ensuring that young women in India had access to scientific education.
Punjab Engineering College awarded Chawla an aeronautical engineering degree. Professors at- tempted to discourage her from choosing the degree since there were few options for females in India who wanted to pursue this career route. This was a point of contention, but Chawla refused to budge. Emigrating from India to the United States in the 1980s, Chawla was granted naturalization so she could complete her education. She’s been an aeronautical engineer at the University of Colorado when she earned her master’s degree in aerospace engineering from the University of Texas at Austin in 2005. Additionally, she began research on fluid mechanics for lifting systems at NASA Ames Research Center the next year.
Career as an Astronaut:
She started work in 1988 at NASA Ames Research Center in the area of powered-lift computational fluid dynamics. She concentrated her research on simulation of complex air flows encountered around aircraft including the Harrier in” ground-effect.” Kalpana Chawla joined Overset Methods Inc., Los Altos, California, as Vice President and Research Scientist to form a team with other researchers specializing in the simulation of moving multiple body problems in 1993. Her work was to develop and implement efficient techniques to perform aerodynamic optimization. Her project works results are documented in technical conference papers and journals.
NASA Experience:
Selected by NASA in December 1994, Kalpana Chawla reported to the Johnson Space Center in March 1995 as an astronaut candidate in the 15th Group of Astronauts. After completing a year of training and evaluation, she was assigned as crew representative to work technical issues for the Astronaut Office EVA/Robotics and Computer Branches. Her assignments included work on development of Robotic Situational Awareness Displays and testing space shuttle control software in the Shuttle Avionics Integration Laboratory. In November, 1996, Kalpana Chawla was assigned as mission specialist and prime robotic arm operator on STS-87. In January 1998, she was assigned as crew representative for shuttle and station flight crew equipment, and subsequently served as lead for Astronaut Office’s Crew Systems and Habitability section. She flew on STS-87 (1997) and STS-107 (2003), logging 30 days, 14 hours and 54 minutes in space.
Space Flight Experience:
STS-87 Columbia (November 19 to December 5, 1997). STS-87 was the fourth U.S Microgravity Payload flight and focused on experiments designed to study how the weightless environment of space affects various physical processes, and on observations of the Sun’s outer atmospheric layers. Two members of the crew performed an EVA (spacewalk) which featured the manual capture of a Spartan satellite, in addition to testing EVA tools and procedures for future Space Station assembly. STS-87 made 252 orbits of the Earth, traveling 6.5 million miles in in 376 hours and 34 minutes. STS-107 Columbia (January 16 to February 1, 2003). The 16-day flight was a dedicated science and research mission. Working 24 hours a day, in two alternating shifts, the crew successfully conducted approximately 80 experiments. The STS-107 mission ended abruptly on February 1, 2003 when Space Shuttle Columbia and the crew perished during entry, 16 minutes prior to scheduled landing.
Awards:
She was posthumously awarded the Congressional Space Medal of Honor, the NASA Space Flight Medal, and the NASA Distinguished Service Medal.
Kalpana’s Legacy:
Kalpana Chawla’s life and profession acted as an example to women who wanted to go into space. Even after Kalpana’s death, her legacy lives on. Kalpana’s father, Banaras Lal Chawla, says that his daughter’s primary goal is to ensure that all children, particularly women, have access to education. Despite the fact that she was making a good living at NASA, she had no desire for worldly possessions and instead chose to use her earnings to assist educate children from low-income families.
Official investigations and reports on the events of Columbia have been released in order to truly comprehend what occurred and how to avoid a repeat of the catastrophe on upcoming space missions. For example, Both the Columbia Incident Reporting Board (2003) and NASA’s Columbia Crew Survival Investigation Report (2003) were published in 2003, making them both from that year. Many films have been made on the Columbia crew. There are a lot of instances, such as” Astronaut Diary entries: Honoring the Team” (2005) and” Space Shuttle Columbia: Mission of Hope” (2013).
The following are some of the things that will serve as a shining remembrance that a woman astronaut from India carved her name in the history of NASA once upon a time.
The government of Karnataka in India instituted the Kalpana Chawla award to recognize young women scientists.
The International Space University’s Alumni founded the Kalpana Chawla ISU scholarship fund to support Indian women who wish to join the international space education program.
The Indian Students Association (ISA) of the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEL) launched the Kalpana Chawla Memorial Scholarship program for deserving graduate students in honor of Kalpana.
The University of Chicago renamed its Alumni Award to The Kalpana Chawla Outstanding Recent Alumni Award. A planetarium in Jyotisar, Kurukshetra Haryana, was named after Kalpana Chawla.
Kalpana’s death was not in vain because several doors of opportunities have been opened for others aspiring to follow in her footsteps. She will be remembered as the first Indian woman who did not let her racial origin hinder her from setting foot in space.
Written by: Vaibhav Kunde
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