Kalpana Chawla-A survivor at heart

Kalpana Chawla born on March 17 , 1962, to immigrant parents and graduated from Rishikesh's Himalayan Mountaineering Institute in 1980, was merely was a 24-year-old when she died in the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster. In 1983, Chawla joined NASA as a Scientist/Astronaut where she worked for over six years. In February 1988, she was selected for Astronaut Training and became an astronaut with the U.S Air Force before joining NASA's astronaut corps in 1990. Chawala was one of only 12 women to have flown into space on the Space Shuttle Columbia mission and was the second Indian woman to enter space after Kalpana Gandhi. She became an American citizen in 1993. Kalpana did not know her actual ancestry till she was 16. She read the genealogy certificate given by her mother and realised that her mother came from a Suryavanshi - Sahadev line-up of kings and queens of northern India. This was a shock for the young Kalpana. She then decided to learn about her real roots and began her research. She found that her family had been trading since the 17th century in the state of Uttarakhand in India. The surname Chawla is a popular family name in this land, which can be derived from the name of the village Chauhansarai (A small village near Rishikesh).

In the early years of his life Kalpana Chawla's father Banarasi Lal Chawla took up several petty jobs to provide for his family. He eventually set up a successful business so, he could afford to send his children to the best schools in England and India. Kalpana went to the Rishikesh's Himalayan Mountaineering Institute in April 1979 where she was trained in rock climbing and other mountaineering techniques. In 1980, she enrolled in Punjab Engineering College, Chandigarh and graduated with a Bachelor of Technology (B Tech) degree in aeronautical engineering 1983. In 1983, after her graduation from Punjab Engineering College, Chandigarh, Chawla joined NASA as an astronaut candidate. During the recruitment program for NASA's Astronaut Candidate programme, 110 scientists and engineers were selected for interviews from which 74 candidates were selected for the 3-year training program that would lead to selection as an astronaut candidate. Eventually, 6 of these candidates were selected as astronaut candidates and Chawla was among them. In 1988, Chawla joined the United States Air Force as an engineer officer candidate from where she was selected in 1990 as an astronaut candidate by NASA. Chawla took part in a variety of scientific experiments in the Space Shuttle Columbia, Chawla was one of the 50 candidates selected by NASA on 20th October 2000 and she was also one of the 15 women selected by NASA as astronaut candidates on that day. She joined the Astronaut Corps on 19th November 2000. She entered space on TWO missions with 'The Crew of STS-87' and 'The Crew of STS-107'.

In 2000, Chawla was a mission specialist aboard STS-87/Columbia . On February, 2003, Chawla was one of the seven crew members who died when the Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrated over Texas during re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere.

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