K is for Kalpana Chawla #BlogchatterA2Z

Kalpana Chawla was born on March 17, 1962, in Karnal, Haryana. As a child, Kalpana was fascinated by aeroplanes and flying.She went to local flying clubs and watched planes with her father.

In 1976, she graduated from the Tagore School, where she was a high-performing student. She got a Bachelor of Engineering degree in Aeronautical Engineering from the Punjab Engineering college .

Later , Chawla moved to the US and obtained a Master of Science degree in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Texas in 1984.

 After becoming a naturalized U.S. citizen in April 1991, Chawla applied for the NASA Astronaut Corps. She joined the 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 .

Chawla was the first Indian origin woman to fly in space. 

She spoke the following words while traveling in the weightlessness of space, "You are just your intelligence." 

On her first mission, Chawla traveled over 10.4 million miles in 252 orbits of the earth, logging more than 372 hours (15 days and 12 hours) in space.

In 2001, Chawla was selected for her second flight as part of the crew of STS-107. But due to some reason this mission got delayed continuously.

On January 16, 2003, Chawla finally returned to space . Unfortunately , a piece of foam insulation broke off from the Space Shuttle External Tank and struck the left wing of the orbiter. 

Chawla died on February 1, 2003, in the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster, along with the other six crew members, when the Columbia disintegrated over Texas during re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere, shortly before it was scheduled to conclude its 28th mission.

She was a great lady and is still there in each of our hearts even today..