Kalpana Chawla

✶March 17, 1962

†January 1, 2003

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About their life

Kalpana Chawla was an American astronaut, aerospace engineer, and pilot. She was the first woman of Indian heritage to fly to space. Chawla participated in two spaceflights, STS-87 and STS-107, in 1997 and 2003, respectively. On both of these flights, she conducted scientific experiments researching the effects of microgravity on various physical processes. When the crew members in STS-107 descended back to Earth, the Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrated due to damage it sustained at liftoff. This killed all seven astronauts on board, including Chawla.

American astronaut

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Biography from the article Kalpana Chawla on the English Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.