KALPANA CHAWLA – THE WOMEN WHO LOVED TO FLY

A role model for countless Indian women, she was an ordinary girl from Karnal
whose lofty dreams and indomitable courage took her to space. Kalpana Chawla
was the first Indian women to fly in space and only the second Indian person to do
so. Her name itself leaves all Indians in pride.

Kalpana’s parents hail from Multan district of West Punjab (now Pakistan). When
her father, Banarsi Lal Chawla was leaving his home town of Sheikhopura,
communal riots broke out. He was one of the few survivors who managed to reach
India safely but without any possessions.

He married Sanyogitha, whose family also came from same region in Pakistan. He
took up several petty jobs (working as a street hawker, a cloth seller and even a
metal fabricator) to provide for his family. He eventually set up a Tyre
manufacturing business while his wife Sanyogita managed the household.

Kalpana was born on 17th March, 1962, in a small town of Karnal in Haryana. She
grew up in an environment where hard work was encouraged. The youngest of four
siblings, Kalpana was a precocious child. She grew up in a typically male
dominant society, where boys were given all freedom and girl weren’t even
allowed to work. Her natural curiosity, independent nature and delight in
discovering how things worked were encouraged by her mother, a supportive and
liberal woman who ensured that all her daughters went to school at a time when
education was considered an unnecessary luxury for girls.

A confident, outgoing girl, Kalpana even selected her own name. It so happened
that Kalpana had not been formally named at a proper ceremony and was called by
her nickname “Monto” at home. She completed her schooling at Tagore Baal
Niketan School. During her admission in a nearby school, Tagore Baal Niketan,
the principal asked the student’s name.

Kalpana’s aunt replied that they had three names in mind – Kalpana, Jyotsna and
Sunaina – but they hadn’t decided yet. So the principal asked the little girl which
name she liked best. And she replied firmly, “Kalpana.”
Just like the name she chose, Kalpana was a highly creative and imaginative child.
On sultry summer days, while her family slept on the roof of their small house, the
little girl would stay awake for hours to watch the twinkling stars in the night sky.

From a young age, she was fascinated by stars and planets. According to an
excerpt from Dilip M Salwi’s book Kalpana Chawla: India’s First Woman
Astronaut, 2003, once when her classmates built a geographical map of India on
the floor of their classroom, she covered the ceiling completely with stars – little
sparkling dots on black chart papers!

Another thing that caught young Kalpana’s fancy were airplanes. Back then,
Karnal was one of the few Indian towns with a flying club called Karnal Aviation
Club. As her house was just a few kilometers away from the club, she would often
clamber up to the roof and watch them go roaring over her head, waving her hand
at the pilot if the plane flew low over the house.

In school, while her friends drew mountains, forests and rivers on being asked to
draw scenery, Kalpana would draw airplanes flying amidst clouds. She also loved
making aircraft models in her craft classes. One of Kalpana’s school teachers
remembers the question the inquisitive and sensitive girl had once asked her: “How
can people be divided into classes, sects and religions, when they all look alike
from the sky?”

After her class 10 board examinations, she got admission in DAV College for her
higher studies. It was here that an interesting (almost prescient) incident took
place.
During a mathematics class, Kalpana’s teacher was explaining the concept of null
set (empty set in algebra). To give an example, she said that a set of Indian women
astronauts was a classic example of null set as till date no Indian woman had
become an astronaut. To everybody’s surprise, Kalpana quipped, “Who knows,
Ma’am, one day this set may not be empty!”

At that time, no one in the classroom could imagine, let alone know, that the girl
who had spoken these lines would herself go on to fill the set!

After completing her class 12 board exams with flying colors, Kalpana decided to
pursue her dream of engineering. Her father was not in favor of her doing
engineering as he believed that it was not suitable career for girls. He advised her
to become a doctor or a school teacher but Kalpana was determined to become a
flight engineer and for that, an engineering degree was essential.

Kalpana had her mother’s unconditional support and her father finally gave in
when he realized that her mind was made up. She was determined to become a
flight engineer nothing on earth could convince her to choose another stream.

Chawla then left for Chandigarh when she took admission in Punjab engineering
college. During counseling for the selection of various engineering courses, she
chose aeronautical engineering the only girl to do so. The surprised counselors
tried their best to dissuade her form joining aeronautical engineering as it had
limited job opportunities in the country but Kalpana refused to budge. When they
asked her second option, she replied that she had none.

In college, Kalpana put her heart and

soul into her studies. As there was no
girl’s hostel, she lived alone in a tiny
room over a garage, cycling to college.
In her free time, she devoted herself to
learning karate (she became a black belt)
and reading books by her favourite
authors (Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Ayn
Rand, Oriana Fallaci and Richard Bach)
She enjoyed listening to classic rock, especially of the 1970s British band Deep
Purple, and Sufi music (Columbia’s debris included CDs of Abida Parveen, Nusrat
Fateh Ali Khan, Ravi Shankar and Hariprasad Chaurasia). Kalpana also loved
collecting magazines and books on aviation and would read them from cover to
cover. She became a student editor at her college magazine and the joint secretary
of the college’s Aero Club and Astro Society.

Always enthusiastic about working on new projects, she surprised her professors
and seniors by presenting a paper on ‘Time-Lapse in Space’ (a topic that dealt with
Albert Einstein’s theories of relativity) at the college’s annual conference in her
first year itself! She completed her B. Tech in aeronautical engineering in 1982.
She was known to have a very inquisitive mind, as said by her teachers, even if she
didn't always top classes.

In 1982, Kalpana secured the third rank in her batch to become the first women
aeronautical engineer to pass out from her college this was, however, just a
stepping stone to much greater heights that she would achieve in the years ahead.

She was 20 years old when she left our shores for the United States of
America. She moved to the States in 1982 to pursue higher education. She had a
tough time persuading her family to allow her to the abroad and as a result, she
joined the session several months late.

Kalpana Chawla pursued education with an unquenchable thirst, she went on to

earn her Master of Science degree in aerospace engineering from the University of
Texas at Arlington. In 1983, Kalpana Chawla married Jean-Pierre Harrison, a
French-American flying instructor and a author, known for his two books: ‘The
Edge of Time: The Authoritative Biography of Kalpana Chawla’ and ‘Principles of
Helicopter Flight’. The couple did not have any children.

In 1984, after graduating from University of Texas, she joined University of

Colorado Boulder, earning a second Master of Science degree in Aerospace
Engineering in 1986. Thereafter, she began to work on her doctoral thesis, earning
her PhD in 1988.

Kalpana’s dream of joining NASA finally came true. In the same year she began
working at NASA’s Ames research centre. She was offered the position of Vice
President of Overset Methods, Inc at NASA Research Center and was later
assigned to do Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) research on Vertical/Short
Takeoff and Landing concepts.

Chawla knew early on in her life that she wanted to be an aerospace engineer.
“Every once in a while,” Chawla said to NASA, “we’d ask my dad if we could get
a ride in one of these planes (planes from local flying clubs). And, he did take us to
the flying club and get us a ride in the Pushpak and a glider that the flying club
had,” she was quoted as saying. Kalpana had been inspired by JRD Tata’s work in
aviation.

Despite her busy schedule, she kept in touch with her school and college in India.
Thanks to her efforts, every year two students from Tagore Baal Nikethan were
given the opportunity to visit NASA. The students would stay with their ‘kalpana
didi’ who would make Indian meals especially for them. Once the project was
complete, she began working on mapping of flow solvers to parallel computers.

In 1991, she became an American citizen. In 1993, she was made Vice President of
Overset Methods Inc. and moved to Los Altos, California, with the responsibility
of developing efficient techniques to perform aerodynamic optimization and
implementing the same. There, she formed a team of researchers and began
working on simulation of moving multiple body problems.

In December 1994, she was selected to join NASA Astronaut Corps, a unit of the
National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Its job is to select, train, and
provide astronauts not only for U.S., but also for international space missions and
is based at Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center in Houston.

In March 1995, she joined Johnson Space Center as an Astronaut Candidate in the
15th Group of Astronauts. There, she underwent rigorous training for one year, at
the end of which she was assigned to the Astronaut Office EVA/Robotics and
Computer Branches to work as crew representative.

As crew representative, she was assigned to work on the development of Robotic

Situational Awareness Displays. Besides, she was also assigned to test space
shuttle control software in the Shuttle Avionics Integration Laboratory.
Astronaut Office Chief Kent Rominger said in a NASA report, “She had a terrific
sense of humor and loved flying small airplanes with her husband and loved flying
in space. Flying was her passion. She would often remind her crew as her training
flow would be delayed and become extended, she would say, ‘Man, you are
training to fly in space. What more could you want?'”

In November 1996, Chawla was assigned to Space Shuttle Columbia flight, STS-
87 as Mission Specialist 1 and the primary Robotic Arm Operator. It was launched
on November 19, 1997 from Launch Complex 39B of the Kennedy Space Center.

During her first mission, Chawla spent around 15 days (376 hours, 34 minutes) in
space, making 252 orbits around the earth, traveling a total distance of 6.5 million
miles. The mission returned to the earth on December 5, 1997. Among other
experiments, STS-87 mainly focused on how the weightless in the space affects
physical processes. They also tested EVA tools and procedures and observed the
outer atmospheric layers of the sun.

Chawla was especially responsible for deploying

a Spartan satellite, which developed a snag,
requiring two members of the crew, Winston
Scott and Takao Doi, to take a spacewalk and
manually capture it. Later it was found that there
was an error in the software interfaces, which
absolved her of negligence.

In January 1998, after the completion of post

flight activities, Chawla joined the Astronaut
Offices Crew Systems, serving as crew
representative for the shuttle and station flight
crew equipment. Subsequently, she served as
lead for Astronaut Offices Crew Systems and
Habitability section.

"On one of the night passes, I dimmed the lights in the flight deck and saw the
stars. 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,” she had said after her first
flight. She sent India a message from space from the space shuttle.
In 2000, Kalpana Chawla was selected as a Mission Specialist for STS-107, the
final flight of Space Shuttle Columbia. It was a scientific mission and included a
small laboratory, christened as ‘space hub’. The laboratory was seven meters in
length, five meters in width and four meters in height.

Initially it was planned that the mission would take off on January 11, 2001; but
was delayed 18 times due to technical problems and scheduling conflicts.
Eventually it was launched on January 16, 2003 from Kennedy Space Center's LC-
39-A. But the launching was not without any hitch.

81.7 seconds after the launch, a piece of foam insulation broke off from the Space
Shuttle external tank and struck the left wing of the orbiter, damaging it
considerably. At that time, STS-107 was at an altitude of about 65,600 feet,
traveling at a speed of 1,650 miles per hour. The space shuttle remained in the
space for 15 days, 22 hours, 20 minutes, 32 seconds. During this period, the
mission crew worked twenty-four hours a day in two alternating shifts, performing
nearly 80 experiments, focusing not only on space science, but also on health and
safety of the astronauts.

After a successful trip in the space, STS-107 re-entered the earth’s atmosphere on
February 1, 2003. However, the crew had missed some damage to the shuttle's
wing. A piece of insulation had fallen off from the shuttle's heat shield, damaging
the thermal protection system. The heat shield is a crucial piece of technology in
spacecrafts and rockets – protection from the scorching heat it faces when re-
entering the Earth's atmosphere.

As the shuttle flew back towards the ground, the damaged wing broke apart. The
spacecraft spun for a minute before the entire shuttle depressurized, killing the
crew in seconds. But the crew never reached home. They died just 16 minutes prior
to landing as the Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrated over Texas during its re-
entry into the Earth’s atmosphere.

In what would turn out to be her last communication with her family, Kalpana had
said, “Our mission is successful and we are all fine here.” In his tribute to Kalpana,
the-then US President George W Bush said United States would be equally proud
of Dr. Kalpana Chawla as Indian.
The whole country mourned the loss of Dr. Kalpana Chawla, she is seen as an icon
for women, showing that anything is possible and that women are no less than men
even in fields like going to space. She traveled over 10.4 million miles in 252
orbits of the earth, logging more than 372 hours in space. After returning, she
received many awards such as Congressional Space Medal of Honor NASA Space
Flight Medal and NASA Distinguished Service Medal for her contribution to space
and science.

Chawla logged 30 days, 14 hours, and 54 minutes in space through her two
missions as an astronaut.

Following her death, the Prime Minister of India announced that the
meteorological series of satellites, MetSat, was to be renamed ‘Kalpana’ in 2003.
The first satellite of the series, ‘MetSat-1’, launched by India on September 12,
2002, was renamed ‘Kalpana-1’. Meanwhile, The Kalpana Chawla Award was
instituted by the Government of Karnataka in 2004 to recognize young women
scientists. NASA, on the other hand, has dedicated a supercomputer to the memory
of Kalpana Chawla.

Chawla’s remains were cremated and her ashes were scattered at National Park in
Utah in accordance to her wish. After her death, ‘51826 Kalpanachawla’, an
asteroid that circles between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter and ‘Chawla Hill’, one
of the seven peaks in the Columbia Hill chain on planet Mars, have been named in
her honor.

In 2004, the University of Texas opened a dormitory named Kalpana Chawla Hall
in her honor. The girls’ hostel in University of Punjab has also been named after
her. Apart from these, many other colleges and universities in India have renamed
their student dormitories and hostels after her.

Kalpana Chawla Government Medical College (KCGMC) in Karnal and Kalpana

Chawla Planetarium in Jyotisar, Kurukshetra also carry her legacy. In addition,
numerous awards and honors have also been established in her name.

74th Street in Jackson Heights in New York City has been renamed ‘Kalpana
Chawla Way’ in her honor. In Mumbai, India, a crossroad in Borivli has been
renamed Kalpana Chawla Chowk.
Kalpana is remembered as an extraordinary woman, an inspiration, and a role
model. She set a mighty example for being courageous, dedicated, and an
independent woman who set her eyes on space and followed through with her
dream.