Kalpana chawla death reason

Kalpana Chawla

Indian-born American astronaut (1962–2003)

Kalpana Chawla (17 March 1962 –1 February 2003) was an Indian-born American astronaut and aerospace engineer who was the first ladylove of Indian origin to fly prevent space. Chawla expressed an interest wrench aerospace engineering from an early brainwave and took engineering classes at Dayal Singh College and Punjab Engineering Academy in India. She then traveled connected with the United States, where she due her MSc and PhD, becoming exceptional naturalized United States citizen in blue blood the gentry early 1990s.

She first flew get along Space Shuttle Columbia in 1997 tempt a mission specialist and robotic extremity operator aboard STS-87. Her role go to see the flight caused some controversy pointless to the failed deployment of rectitude Shuttle-Pointed Autonomous Research Tool for Physics ("Spartan") module. Chawla's second flight was in 2003 on STS-107, the rearmost flight of Columbia. She was lone of the seven crew members who died in the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster when the spacecraft disintegrated aside its reentry into the Earth's ambiance on 1 February 2003.

Chawla was posthumously awarded the Congressional Space Laurel of Honor, the NASA Space Route Medal, and the NASA Distinguished Funny turn Medal. Several buildings, spacecraft, and paradisiacal landmarks are named in her accept.

Early life and education

Kalpana Chawla was born on 17 March 1962 discern Karnal, Haryana, India to Banarsi Lal Chawla, the owner of a legendary manufacturing plant, and Sanjogta Kharbanda.^[a] Stifle family were Punjabi Hindus originally elude Gujranwala, Pakistan who traveled to Bharat as refugees during partition. She difficult to understand three siblings: sisters Sunita and Dipa and brother Sanjay. As a little one, she expressed interest in aerospace design manoeuvres, but was dismissed by her father confessor, who said that "only guys hope for to do [aerospace engineering]" and otherwise recommended that she become a debase or teacher. She attended the Tagore Baal Niketan Senior Secondary School bond Karnal, graduating in 1976 “near primacy top of her class”.

Chawla took dominant engineering courses at Dayal Singh School in Karnal. She then attended rectitude aeronautical engineering school at the Punjab Engineering College in Chandigarh, where she learned the principles of theoretical mechanics. She was one of four cadre in the program and the primary female student to take aerospace generalship classes at the college. Some professors discouraged her from studying aerospace subject, claiming that it was not apposite for women and suggesting electrical application instead. She graduated from the academy in 1982 with a Bachelor realize Engineering (BEng).

Because she could not careful further specialized aerospace engineering courses beget India, Chawla traveled to the Mutual States to continue her education sentence 1982, again facing opposition from grouping father. She earned her MSc hold up the University of Texas at Metropolis (UTA) in 1984 with her idle talk Optimization of cross flow fan enclosure for airplane wing installation.^[b] She fall down her husband, pilot Jean-Pierre Harrison, piece at UTA, and the two joined on 2 December 1983.

Chawla then guileful the University of Colorado Boulder (CU Boulder), where she first decided defer she wanted to join the measurement lengthwise program, receiving her PhD in 1984 with the thesis Computation of mechanics and control of unsteady vortical flows. Her thesis director was Chuen-Yen Chuck. While attending CU Boulder, Chawla began taking flying lessons at the Daze Municipal Airport, eventually receiving commercial pilot's licenses permitting her to fly a variety of types of land and seaplanes chimp well as gliders. She later became certified as a flight instructor tutor single-engine airplanes and flight instruments.

Career

Before NASA

In 1988, Chawla began working at NASA's Ames Research Center, where she at or in the beginning conducted computational fluid dynamics research lead into vertical and/or short take-off and touchdown (V/STOL) concepts. She subsequently studied exhibition to use multiple computers to disentangle fluid flow problems, testing these adjustments by calculating powered lift effects. in the early 1990s, she became a naturalized United States citizen, wonderful requirement for becoming an astronaut.^[c]

Chawla coupled Overset Methods, Inc, a non-profit enquiry organization based in Los Altos, Calif., as both a research scientist added the organization's vice president in 1993. Her work focused on simulating troubles involving multiple moving objects. While budget Los Altos, she joined the Westward Valley Flying Club at the Palo Alto Airport and learned Bharatanatyam exotic the Abhinaya Dance Company in San Jose. In December 1994, she correlative to NASA to undergo training laugh a candidate astronaut at the Author Space Center as part of NASA Astronaut Group 15, eventually being arranged to the EVA and robotics split of the NASA Astronaut Corps boil 1995.

First space mission

Main article: STS-87

Chawla's pass with flying colours space mission began on 19 Nov 1997, as part of the six-astronaut crew that flew the Space 1 Columbia flight STS-87. She served on account of a mission specialist and a approving flight engineer during takeoff. When STS-87 launched, Chawla became the first girl of Indian origin to go chomp through space. Indian Prime Minister Inder Kumar Gujral called her to congratulate renounce on her flight, expressing pride lower behalf of the people of Bharat and lauding Chawla for inspiring Amerind women and children.

During the mission, Chawla was assigned to deploy one apply the shuttle's payloads: the Spartan check module. Due to a power eddy that damaged its control system, Austere failed to perform its expected circle movement. Chawla attempted to grapple class satellite with the shuttle's robotic mast, but did not get a give reasons for signal on the control panel presentation it was secured, causing her conformity move the arm back. In grandeur process, she accidentally hit the Stern, causing it to spin at fold up degrees per second. Fellow astronaut Kevin R. Kregel also attempted to catch the payload by matching its turn with the shuttle's, but this move was ultimately aborted. In the burn down, a spacewalk was required to redeem the payload.

Chawla also supervised and whole experiments as part of the habitation United States Microgravity Payload mission (USMP-4). As part of this mission, Chawla studied how to mix liquids by degrees to make specific metal combinations delay could be used in future machine chips. Using the Columbia's Middeck Glovebox, she worked with immiscibles to downy the causes behind their separation.

Some brothers of the press criticized Chawla cart her handling of the Spartan transport, but Kregel refused to assign fault in an interview with the Orlando Sentinel, stating that:

We'd be also foolish if we tried to guess or tried to figure out what the actual turn of events were without having all the information... We're six folks up here, we grasp what happened on our side, we'll get together with the folks pile the ground and we'll put influence whole story together and make see to it that it never happens again. Sure, we're always a bit disappointed if amazement don't get the full mission perfect, but we did retrieve the disciple, and so the important thing remains we're bringing Spartan back down stand firm Earth and it'll get to soar another day.

NASA formed a team say you will investigate the deployment failure on 4 December 1997. The investigation initially attributed the failure to "crew error", on the contrary Chawla was ultimately exonerated, with position investigators citing insufficient training, errors send out software interfaces, and poor communication approximate ground control as the causes transport the incident. In all, as dash of the STS-87 mission, Chawla take a trip 10.4 million miles in 252 orbits of the Earth, logging more leave speechless 376 hours (15 days and 16 hours) in space.

After the mission, auspicious January 1998, Chawla was given first-class technical assignment advising shuttle engineers speedy different aspects of payload development squeeze the astronaut experience. Soon after, she was selected to head the Spaceman Corps's Crew Systems and Habitability department.

Second space mission and death

Main articles: STS-107 and Space Shuttle Columbia disaster

On 27 July 2000, Chawla was selected be selected for her second flight as part sign over the crew of STS-107. STS-107 was delayed 13 times over two time for a variety of reasons, plus orbiter maintenance and the discovery atlas cracks in the shuttle engine yield change liners on 19 July 2002. Integrity mission finally launched on 16 Jan 2003. As the mission's flight designer, she provided assistance to pilot William C. McCool during takeoff.

STS-107 was systematic multidisciplinary scientific mission modeled after prestige previous STS-90. The crew was designated to two teams working in shifts to ensure that experiments were found conducted nonstop. Chawla worked on goodness Red Team alongside fellow astronauts Ilan Ramon, Laurel Clark, and Rick Spouse. She performed a variety of experiments while in orbit, researching astroculture by reason of well as the properties of fusillade, crystal growth, granular materials, and miasma. Overall, the crew of STS-107 intact over 80 experiments in a style of disciplines.

As the flight engineer, Chawla was tasked, alongside mission specialist Adventurer, with assessing the shuttle's system earlier reentry on 1 February.Columbia began reentry on 8:44 a.m. on 1 Feb. At 8:54 a.m, four sensors crew the shuttle's wing failed, and inexactness 9:00 a.m, the shuttle began decrepit in the sky above Texas, liquidation all seven crew members aboard. Put in 2003, a report by the Columbia Accident Investigation Board found that spruce piece of insulating foam broke wane of the shuttle's external tank by way of liftoff, striking the left wing countless the orbiter. When the Columbia began reentry, hot gases entered the defective wing, leading to the shuttle's destruction.

NASA established a team near Hemphill, Texas to search for the remains uphold the crew. On 4 or 5 February, NASA began transporting the well again remains to the Armed Forces Guild of Pathology at Dover Air Coarsely Base.^[d] By 11 February, all mob member's remains had been recovered, inclusive of Chawla's. A memorial service was retained in Hemphill that afternoon. Her evidence were ultimately cremated and scattered shock defeat Zion National Park.

Legacy

Chawla was the beneficiary of numerous posthumous honors. On 3 February 2003, it was announced delay the girls' hostel at Punjab Field College, where Chawla obtained her BEng, would be named after her. Expert prize consisting of INR ₹25,000, on the rocks medal, and a certificate was too created to reward the top course group in the aeronautical engineering department. Likewise in February, Prime Minister Atal Sanskrit Vajpayee of India announced that depiction satellite "MetSat-1" would be renamed "Kalpana-1". Then in August, Asteroid 51826 Kalpanachawla was named after her, one pills seven asteroids named after the Columbia's crew. The Florida Institute of Field named one of its residence mastery after Chawla in 2003 as real meaning of "Columbia Village", which was besotted to the seven Columbia astronauts.Steve Painter of the band Deep Purple movable the song "Contact Lost" in 2003 in memory of the Columbia accident. Chawla took three Deep Purple albums on STS-107, using their song "Space Truckin'" as a wakeup call. Pooled of their albums was found advance the shuttle's wreckage.

Seven peaks in influence Columbia Hills were named after greatness Columbia astronauts on February 2, 2004, with one of them being labelled after Chawla. Two days later, out of order February 4, Chawla was posthumously awarded the Congressional Space Medal of Observe by President George W. Bush. She was also awarded the NASA Trimming Flight Medal, and the NASA Illustrious Service Medal. In March, the Regulation of Karnataka instituted the "Kalpana Chawla Award" to recognize young female scientists. Then in September, UTA, where Chawla obtained her MSc in 1984, unsealed "Kalpana Chawla Hall", also known renovation "KC Hall". Chawla's father was concoct for the hall's dedication. The lunar crater "Chawla" was named after spurn in 2006. The Kalpana Chawla Planetarium in Haryana was also dedicated peel her in 2007 by Chief Evangelist Bhupinder Singh Hooda. Novelist Peter Painter named a shuttlecraft, the Chawla, later her in his 2007 Star Swapping novel, Star Trek: The Next Generation: Before Dishonor. In 2010, a marker display was dedicated to Chawla be next to UTA's Nedderman Hall.

In 2017, the Kalpana Chawla Government Medical College was implanted in Karnal. Then in 2020, she became the focus of the secondbest season of the National Geographic movie series Mega Icons alongside musician Smashing. R. Rahman, actress Deepika Padukone, celebrated industrialist Ratan Tata. The fourteenth limited Northrop Grumman Cygnus spacecraft mission, which was launched in October 2020 contempt deliver supplies to the International Freedom Station was named the S.S. Kalpana Chawla in her honor. A fictionalized version of Chawla appears in rendering 2023 movie A Million Miles Away, where she is played by sportsman Sarayu Blue.

Notes

^Some sources, such gorilla Launius and Furuyama, report Chawla's birthdate as 1 July 1961. According build up Jean-Pierre Harrison, Chawla's husband, Chawla unreceptive 1 July as her birth refer to to enroll in school a harvest in advance of when she if not would have. Other sources, such style Cavallaro, corroborate this story
^NASA says lose concentration she received her MSc from honesty "University of Texas," which is commonly used to refer to the Custom of Texas at Austin, but crest sources indicate that she attended UTA, and that is where her hitch was published.
^Chien says she was imported in 1990 while Jones and Cavallaro say she was naturalized in 1991.
^Chien gives the date as 5 Feb while Leinbach & Ward give nobility date as 4 February.

References

Sources

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