Kalpana Chawla The American Astronaut

The morning of 1st February 2003 brought news to the world which made everyone sad. On this day, NASA's important ambitious space stall Columbia crashed while returning to Earth, in all 6 astronauts including Kalpana Chawla died in this Crash. Kalpana Chawla was born in Haryana; she was the first woman of Indian origin to go into space. Kalpana had dreamed of flying since childhood and also worked very hard to fulfill it. To make her dream come true, she enrolled in 'BE' to study Aeronautical Engineering in 1982. After this Kalpana went to America and enrolled in 'Aeronautical Engineering' in 1982. Kalpana went to the University of Texas' to pursue a master's in 'Aerospace Engineering' in 1982, after completing her studies; she started working with NASA in 1988 and then shifted to America. In 1991, she also got American citizenship.

NASA became part of her life. For the first time in 1997, she got a chance to go on a space mission. She became a part of NASA's space shuttle program. One of NASA's missions is 'Human Spaceflight'. Under this program some people are sent to space in a group through spacecraft, the space shuttle program was also a manned space flight program. The fourth was the human spaceflight program. The 88th mission of this fourth program was Columbia flight STS-87. Kalpana Chawla became a part of it. This was Kalpana's first space mission. Then Kalpana went on her second space mission in the year 2003. The mission was space shuttle Columbia STS-107. It was the 113th mission of the spacecraft program. STS-107 left Earth on 16 January 2003, and Kalpana was once again in space. She completed her first space flight with the STS 87 Columbia shuttle, its duration from 19 November 1997 to 5 December 1997. In this flight, Kalpana traveled 10.4 million miles and made 252 orbits of the earth, as well as spent 360 hours in space. As the space shuttle entered the earth's atmosphere on February 1, hot gases from the atmosphere entered the spacecraft's inner wing structure, causing minor damage, due to which the spacecraft broke down, all the astronauts died, and Kalpana Chawla too. On hearing the name of Kalpana Chawla, the face comes to the fore. Whose smile was telling that we are Indians? We have no enmity with anyone, only a relationship of love. Don't underestimate us; we know how to tilt the sky. She was the first Indian woman to join NASA as an astronaut.

By: Srishti Rathod