Kalpana Chawla Death Anniversary: Here's To Know Some Of The Interesting Facts About First Indian Woman In Space

Kalpana Chawla was an Indian-American astronaut and aerospace engineer who was the first woman of Indian origin to fly to space.

She was born in Karnal, Haryana, on March 17, 1962, and died on February 1, 2003, at the age of 40. On her death anniversary, take a look at some of the interesting facts about the legendary astronaut.

Kalpana Chawla’s main source of inspiration was JRD Tata, who was India’s first licensed pilot.

Kalpana Chawla joined NASA in 1988, in computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and was selected as an astronaut candidate in 1994.

The astronaut started working at the NASA Ames Research Centre in 1988 and became a naturalised US citizen in April 1991. Later, she applied for the NASA Astronaut Corps and joined it in 1995.

In 1997, Kalpana was part of a six-astronaut crew that was on the mission Space Shuttle Columbia. The mission made her the first Indian origin woman and second Indian to fly in space.

Three years after her first flight, she was chosen as the crew member for STS-107. After much delay, the mission commenced in 2003. Unfortunately, the 16-day flight, which took off on January 16, collapsed 16 minutes before landing in the Earth’s atmosphere.