KALPANA CHAWLA (PH.D.

)
NASA ASTRONAUT
 Kalpana Chawla was born in 1961in a
 Punjabi family at Karnal, Haryana, India.
 Kalpana’s parents were Banarasi Lal Chawla

and Sanjyoti.
  Kalpana in Sanskrit means "imagination". Her

interest in flying was inspired by J. R. D. Tata,

a pioneering Indian pilot and industrialist.
 Kalpana Chawla did her earlier schooling at Tagore Public School, Karnal.
She earned her Bachelor of Science degree in aeronautical
engineering at Punjab Engineering College in Chandigarh in 1982.
 She moved to the United States in 1982 and obtained a Master of Science
degree in aerospace engineering from the University of Texas at
Arlington (1984).
 Chawla earned a second Master of Science degree in 1986 and a PhD in
aerospace engineering in 1988 from the University of Colorado at
Boulder.
 Later that year she began working for NASA Ames Research Centre as vice
president of Overset Methods, Inc. where she did CFD research
on V/STOL.
  Chawla held a Certificated Flight Instructor rating for airplanes, gliders
and Commercial Pilot licenses for single and multiengine airplanes,
seaplanes and gliders.
 She held an FCC issued Technician Class Amateur Radio license with the
call sign KD5ESI. She met and married Jean-Pierre Harrison, a flying
instructor and aviation writer, in 1983 and became a naturalized United
States citizen in 1990.
 From a very young age, JRD Tata and his maiden flight had
captured her imagination. She too dreamt of flying and reaching
out to the stars and planets.
 Her fondness for flying saw her joining the local flying club. She
acquired a certified flight instructor's license and commercial
pilot's license for single- and multiple-engine land and
seaplanes. She also became skilled in aerobatics. Finally in 1994,
her efforts paid when out of 2962 applicants for a space mission,
NASA chose 19 and Kalpana's name figured in it.

Kalpana had worked hard towards it. She would say: "If you look
up to the top of the mountain, then climbing it may seem an
impossible task. But if you focus on the next step and take it one
step at a time, then you certainly will be able to do it." That is
exactly what she did. She very dedicatedly charted out her course,
stuck to the path and took it in stride ONE STEP AT A TIME.
 In 1988, Kalpana Chawla started work at NASA Ames Research
Center in the area of powered-lift computational fluid dynamics.
Her research concentrated on simulation of complex air flows
encountered around aircraft such as the Harrier in "ground-
effect."
 Following completion of this project she supported research in
mapping of flow solvers to parallel computers, and testing of
these solvers by carrying out powered lift computations. In 1993
Kalpana Chawla joined Overset Methods Inc., Los Altos,
California, as Vice President and Research Scientist to form a
team with other researchers specializing in simulation of moving
multiple body problems.
 She was responsible for development and implementation of
efficient techniques to perform aerodynamic optimization.
 Results of various projects that Kalpana Chawla participated in
are documented in technical conference papers and journals
 Chawla joined the NASA astronaut corps in March 1995 and was selected for her first
flight in 1998. Her first space mission began on November 19, 1997 as part of the six
astronaut crew that flew the Space Shuttle Columbia flight STS-87. Chawla was the first
Indian-born woman and the second person of Indian origin to fly in space, following
cosmonaut Rakesh Sharma who flew in 1984 in a Soviet spacecraft.
 On her first mission Chawla travelled over 10.4 million miles in 252 orbits of the earth,
logging more than 360 hours in space.
 During STS-87, she was responsible for deploying the Spartan Satellite which
malfunctioned, necessitating a spacewalk by Winston Scott and Takao Doi to capture
the satellite. A five-month NASA investigation fully exonerated Chawla by identifying
errors in software interfaces and the defined procedures of flight crew and ground
control.
 After the completion of STS-87 post-flight activities, Chawla was assigned to technical
positions in the astronaut office, her performance in which was recognized with a
special award from her peers.
 In 2000 she was selected for her second flight as part of the crew of STS-107.
 This mission was repeatedly delayed due to scheduling conflicts and technical
problems such as the July 2002 discovery of cracks in the shuttle engine flow liners.
 On January 16, 2003 Chawla finally returned to space abroad  Columbia on the ill-fated
STS-107 mission. Chawla's responsibilities included the
SPACEHAB/FREESTAR microgravity experiments, for which the crew conducted nearly
80 experiments studying earth and space science, advanced technology development,
and astronaut health and safety.
 Chawla's last visit to India was during the 1991–1992 new year holiday when she and
her husband spent time with her family. For various reasons, Chawla was never able to
follow up on invitations to visit India after she became an astronaut.
  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, travelling 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.
 US space shuttle Columbia disintegrated shortly before landing
on  Saturday morning, killing the seven crew members  on board
,including Indian American Kalpana Chawla.
 Witnesses in and near Waco and Dallas, Texas, reported seeing
the space shuttle breaking up around 8 am local time, about 16
minutes before its scheduled landing at Cape Canaveral, Florida.
 Local cameramen captured several vapour trails in a clear blue
sky as the shuttle broke up.
 The explosion occurred during the hottest part of re-entry,
called the zipper effect, in which the panels come off.
 Columbia was returning to earth after a 16-day mission and was
commanded by Texan Rick Husband, who was on his second
mission. It was also the second mission for Karnal, Haryana-
born Kalpana Chawla after her debut flight in 1997
 Posthumously awarded
 Congressional Space Medal of HONOUR
 NASA Space Flight Medal
 NASA Distinguished Service Medal
 Defence Distinguished Service Medal
MEMORIA

Kalpana Chawla Memorial Scholarship program was instituted by Indian
students association (ISA) at the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) in
2005 for meritorious graduate students . Asteroid 51826 Kalpana chawla,
one of seven citations named after the Columbia's crew On February 5,
2003, India's Prime Minister announced that the meteorological series of
satellites, "METSAT", will be renamed as "KALPANA".
 The first satellite of the series, "METSAT-1", launched by India on
September 12, 2002 will be now known as "KALPANA-1". "KALPANA-2" is
expected to be launched by 2007.
 74th Street in Jackson Heights, Queens, New York City has been
renamed 74th Street Kalpana Chawla Way in her honour. The University
of Texas at Arlington (where Chawla obtained a Master of Science degree
in Aerospace Engineering in 1984) opened a dormitory named in her
honour, Kalpana Chawla Hall, in 2004.
 Kalpana Chawla Award  was instituted by the government of Karnataka in
2004 for young women scientists .The girls hostel at Punjab Engineering
College, is named after Kalpana Chawla.
 In addition, an award of INR twenty five thousand, a medal, and a
certificate is instituted for the best student in Aeronautical engineering
department NASA has dedicated a super computer to Kalpana .
 One of Florida Institute of Technology's student apartment complexes,
Columbia Village Suites, has halls named after each of the astronauts,
including Chawla . NASA Mars Exploration Rover mission has named
seven peaks in a chain of hills, named the Columbia Hills, after each of
the seven astronauts lost in the Columbia shuttle disaster, including
Chawla hill after Kalpana Chawla . Steve Morse from the band Deep
Purple created a song called "Contact Lost" in memory of the Columbia
tragedy along with her interest in the band.
 The song can be found on the album Bananas . Her brother, Sanjay Chawla
, remarked "To me, my sister is not dead. She is immortal. Isn't that what
a star is? She is a permanent star in the sky.
 She will always be up there where she belongs."Novelist Peter
David named a shuttlecraft, the Chawla, after the astronaut in his 2007 Star
Trek novel, Star Trek: The Next Generation: Before Dishonour . Government
of Haryana has made a Planetarium after her name called as Kalpana
Chawla Planetarium in JOYTISAK Kurukshetra Indian Institute of
Technology, Kharapur started the Kalpana Chawla Space Technology Cell
in her honour.