Kalpana Chawla remembered

The famous Indian Astronaut who died very young, Kalpana Chawla was born on March 17, 1962 in Karnal in Haryana. She was the first Indian-American astronaut and the first Indian woman in space. For the first time she flew on Space Shuttle Columbia in the year 1997 as a mission specialist and primary robotic arm operator.

After finishing her formal education, she moved to the United States in 1982 and obtained an M.S. degree in aerospace engineering from the University of Texas at Arlington in 1984. Later, Kalpana Chawla obtained a PhD in aerospace engineering in 1988 from the University of Colorado. She was a Certified Flight Instructor for airplanes and small scale copters.

Chawla joined the NASA Astronaut Corps in March 1995 and was selected for her first flight in 1996. 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.

Later, in 2003, Chawla was one of the seven crew members killed in the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster. Chawla died in the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster which occurred on February 1, 2003, when the Space Shuttle disintegrated over Texas during re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere.