Consider Kalpana Chawla as an icon of space
exploration.
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After receiving her doctorate, she got a job at NASA’s Ames Research Centre, California (ARC). The ARC focuses on astrobiology, supercomputing, robotic lunar explorations etc, all of which help in NASA’s space missions. Kalpana’s specific area of research at the centre was computational fluid dynamics (CFD) where she tried to devise methods to accurately predict the pattern of air flow around an aircraft. In 1990, she was naturalized as a citizen of the US. The Challenger disaster of 1986 in which the space shuttle broke apart 73 seconds after its launch killing all the crew members wasn’t too long ago, yet the brave Kalpana, who was never afraid of a new challenge, applied to NASA’s space programme. In 1994 she was selected to be part of their upcoming 16-day microgravity mission. The STS-87 mission aboard the space shuttle Columbia began on November 19th, 1997 with a 6-member crew.
Her duty on the mission was to operate a robotic arm to deploy the Spartan satellite, used to study the sun in collaboration with SOHO (Solar and Heliospheric Observatory) a NASA/ European spacecraft. Being a mission specialist for the journey, she was also responsible for heading several microgravity experiments while on board the spacecraft. The STS-87 orbited the Earth 252 times covering 6.5 million miles in 376 hours and 34 minutes.
On her return, she talked of being blown away by the beauty and the vastness of space. “When you look at the stars and the galaxy, you feel that you are not just from any particular piece of land, but from the solar system.”
Second Time in Space: The Space Shuttle Columbia Disaster
Her second mission to space was as a mission specialist on the STS-107 Columbia which departed on January 16th, 2003. The seven-member crew managed to conduct 80 micro-gravity research experiments on their 16-day mission clocking in 24 work hours a day by working in shifts. At the end of the mission, the space shuttle began its journey back home to the Kennedy Space Centre, Florida. During the launch, a piece of the shield that protects the spacecraft from heating upon re-entry came off the wing of the shuttle. On 1st February 2003 on its way back, the heat generated while passing the Earth’s atmosphere destabilised the shuttle and caused it to break up into several parts. All crew members including Kalpana Chawla were killed.
At the memorial service for the Columbian Astronauts, the then President of the United States, George W Bush tried to put in words what her loss meant for both nations:
“None of our astronauts travelled a longer path to space than Kalpana Chawla. She left India as a student, but she would see the nation of her birth, all of it, from hundreds of miles above. When the sad news reached her home town, an administrator at her high school recalled, ‘She always said she wanted to reach the stars. She went there, and beyond.’ Kalpana’s native country mourns her today, and so does her adopted land.”
With her two missions, Kalpana Chawla travelled a total of 30 days, 14 hours and 54 minutes in space.
Honours and Recognition
She was posthumously awarded the Congressional Space Medal of Honor, the NASA Space Flight Medal and the NASA Distinguished Service Medal.
Given the scale of her achievements, the kind of recognition and honour she has received since her death is no surprise. From asteroids to hills on Mars to satellites, several entities in space have been named after her. Scores of awards and scholarships have been constituted in her honour. In pop culture too, her memory lives on through the songs and the science fiction written for her and her deceased crew mates.
What lies beyond this life of ours on Earth has always been one of humanity’s biggest missions. In taking us closer to that dream, Kalpana Chawla along with her crew mates died a hero.
Kalpana Chawla’s life trajectory knows no parallel, which is probably what makes her this century’s biggest trailblazer for Indian women in science. She is someone who broke the glass ceiling and paved the way for so many others to follow, someone who is a pioneer in every sense of the word.
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