Presentation on Kalpana Chawla
                     
Presentation on 



Presentation on 

Kalpana Chawla 


Kalpana Chawala Born in Karnal, India on March 17, 1962. 

The name Kalpana means "idea" or "imagination. Chawla did a 

diploma in aeronautical engineering from Punjab Engineering 

College before immigrating towards the U.S. and achieving a 

naturalized citizen in the 1980s. She earned a doctoral in 

aerospace engineering in the College of Colorado in 1988, 

getting formerly acquired her masters degree in the College of 

Texas. She started working at NASA's Ames Research Centre 

exactly the same year, focusing on power-lift computational 

fluid dynamics. In 1994, Chawla was selected being an 

astronaut candidate. 


Disaster strikes 

  

In 2003, Chawla was one of member of the seven crew members who 

were died in the Space Shuttle Columbia Disaster. Chawla was awarded 

with the Congressional Space Medal Honour. 

From left to right: Brown, Husband, Clark, Kalpana Chawla,  

Anderson, McCool, Ramon 

Image Source - wikipedia.org/ 


In 2000, Chawla was selected on her second voyage into space, serving 

again like a mission specialist on STS-107. The mission was delayed 

several occasions, and lastly launched in 2003. During the period of the 

16-day flight, the crew completed greater than 80 experiments. 

Image Source - wikimedia.org 


NASA/JSC 

  

Around the morning of February 1st , 2003, the area shuttle came 

back to Earth, planning to land at Kennedy Space Centre. At launch, 

a briefcase-sized bit of insulation had damaged off and broken the 

thermal protection system from the shuttle's wing, the shield that 

protects it from heat during re-entry. Because the shuttle undergone 

the climate, hot gas streaming in to the wing caused it to interrupt up. 

The unstable craft folded and bucked, pitching the astronauts about. 

Under one minute passed prior to the ship depressurized, killing the 

crew. The shuttle split up over Texas and Louisiana before plunging 

in to the ground. The accident was the 2nd major disaster for that 

takes space shuttle program, following a 1986 explosion from the 

shuttle Challenger. 


The occasions of Columbia happen to be formally investigated and 

reported on to understand happened and the way to avoid the 
tragedy from re-occurring later on spaceflights. These include the 

Columbia Accident Analysis Board (2003) NASA's Columbia Crew 

Survival Analysis Report (released in 2008). 

Chawla's legacy 

Several documentaries happen to be created concerning the Columbia 

crew. A few examples include "Astronaut Diaries: Remembering the 

Columbia Shuttle Crew" (2005), and something that centered on Ilan 

Ramon, known as "Takes Space 


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