Kalpana Chawla Biography 
Kalpana Chawla was an astronaut who worked with NASA. She was originally an Indian but later became the citizen of USA. She was killed in the Space shuttle Columbia along with her seven crew members on 1st February 2003.
She was born in Karnal, in Haryana on 1st July 1961. Her parents are Banarasi Lal Chawla and Sanjyothi. Her two sisters are Sunita and Deepa and his brother’s name was Sanjay. Her nickname was Montu. She married the flying instructor, Jean Pierre Harrison in 1983 and became US citizen in 1990. She did her schooling at Tagore Public School, Karnal. After doing her Bachelor of Engineering in Aeronautical science in Punjab, she went to US and obtained M.S. degree in aerospace engineering in the University of Texas. Then again she did her second M.S. and finished her doctorate in the University of Colorado. She started to work for NASA from then on.
Kalpana Chawla was selected for her first flight in 1998 after joining the NASA Astronaut Corps. She traveled 10.4 million kilometers. Totally six astronauts went into space on November 19 1997 in the Space Shuttle Columbia flight STS – 87. She was the first Indian born women to go into space. She was only next to Rakesh Sharma to fly in the spacecraft. She deployed the malfunctioned Spartan Satellite.
Again she was selected for her second flight. The flight was delayed due to some technical problems. Columbia returned back from space after its STS – 107 mission. He had done some experiments on microgravity and did 80 experiments to study the earth and astronaut health and safety. During its reentry into the Earth’s atmosphere, the space shuttle disintegrated and lost its seven crew members including Kalpana Chawla.
She got various honors like Congressional Space Medal of Honor, NASA Space Flight Medal and NASA Distinguished Service Medal after her death. She was honored in a number of ways both by Indian government and American government.
Published: N/A
Updated: October 01, 2017
