First Indian Woman in Space!!



Kalpana Chawla  was an American astronaut and the first woman of Indian origin in space.
Chawla was born on 17 March 1962, but her official date of birth was altered to 1 July 1961 to allow her to become eligible for the matriculation exam.
In 1988, she began working at NASA, where she did computational fluid dynamics (CFD) research on vertical and/or short take-off and landing (V/STOL) concepts.
Her first space mission began on November 19, 1997, as part of the six-astronaut crew that flew the Space Shuttle Columbia flight STS-87. Chawla was the first Indian-born woman and the second Indian person to fly in space, following astronaut Rakesh Sharma who flew in 1984 on the Soyuz T-11. 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 (16737177.6 K M) in 252 orbits of the earth, logging more than 372 hours (15 Days and 12 Hours) in space.
In 2000, Chawla was selected for her second flight as part of the crew of STS-107. This mission was repeatedly delayed due to scheduling conflicts and technical problems such as the July 2002 discovery of cracks in the shuttle engine flow liners. On January 16, 2003, Chawla finally returned to space aboard Space Shuttle Columbia on the ill-fated STS-107 mission.
Chawla died in the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster which occurred on February 1, 2003; she was killed, 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, STS-107.
Chawla's remains were identified along with the rest of the crew members and were cremated and scattered at National Park in Utah in accordance with her wishes.

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