“Kalpana Chawla” Hello friend, on February 1, 2003, NASA’s Columbia Space Shuttle was returning to Earth. There were seven astronauts on board, including a very special one for India, mission specialist Kalpana Chawla. After spending two weeks in space, they were coming back to Earth where their families and friends were eagerly waiting.
This flight was very special for everyone involved, but for NASA, it was a routine mission since it was the 28th flight of the Columbia program. At 8:44 AM, the space shuttle entered Earth’s atmosphere. All systems were working as expected, and everything seemed normal.
At the space center on Earth, capsule communicator (Capcom) Charlie Hobaugh was present. He was the person communicating with the space shuttle.
After a few minutes, Charlie Hobock sat with the astronauts in the space shuttle and talked about tire pressure readings. Meanwhile, Mission Commander Rick Husbett was answering when the line suddenly cut off. Charlie only heard one word, “Roger,” before the answer stopped.
Charlie tried to communicate again, but there was no response. After 10 minutes of trying, there was still no answer. NASA’s team at the Space Center didn’t know that there had been an accident on the Columbia Space Shuttle.
Then, a call came to Kennedy Space Center.
Some people on the ground looked up at the sky and saw what seemed like a comet falling. This bright light broke into two pieces and then scattered into even more pieces. These shiny fragments started falling towards the Earth.
At 2:12 AM in Texas, these pieces began to fall from the sky. NASA realized that a very dangerous event had occurred. A few hours later, President George Bush addressed the nation about this incident.
All seven astronauts lost their lives. One of them was a 40-year-old woman named Kalpana Chawla, an American astronaut. Her story became an inspiration for the whole country.
Kalpana Chawla Early life and education :
Kalpana Chawla was born on March 17, 1962, in Karnal, Haryana. She came from a conservative family. Her parents, Banarasi Lal Chawla and Sanyogita Chawla, moved to India from Pakistan during the partition. Kalpana was their fourth and youngest child.
When When Kalpana Chawla started school, she didn’t have a formal name. At home, they called her Montu. So when it was time to choose a name, she picked “Kalpana” herself, which means imagination. No one could have imagined back then what this little girl would achieve in her life.
Kalpana Chawla’s brother Sanjay Chawla says that Kalpana’s determination started early. She wanted to show everyone that she was not just any girl. Sanjay describes her as a very determined person.
Imagine the 1960s. Even today, in many parts of Haryana, boys are often preferred over girls. So, you can guess how it was back then. Kalpana Chawla became interested in space by watching planes fly in the sky. As a child, she would visit the local flying club with her dad. Her parents noticed her interest.
Back then, people thought there was no career for girls in this field. Sanjay Chawla says it was a big hobby for everyone. Many tried to discourage Kalpana Chawla and told her not to pursue it. But nothing could stop Kalpana. She completed her bachelor’s degree in aeronautical engineering from Punjab Engineering College. Then she went to the University of Texas in America for her master’s degree, even though her father…
NASA CAREER :
In 1988, at around 26 years old, she completed her Ph.D. in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Colorado. She then started working at NASA’s AIMS Research Center, focusing on Fluid Dynamics Aircraft. This means she studied how air flows like a fluid around aircraft wings.
Kalpana Chawla had many pilot licenses and could fly airplanes, gliders, and seaplanes. In 1991, she became an American citizen. By 1994, NASA selected her for astronaut training from over 4,000 applicants. She was one of the 20 chosen.
After three years of training, in November 1997, Kalpana went on her first space flight under the Columbia program, Flight STS-87. During this mission, she conducted more than 250 experiments.
For two weeks, people stay in space. The full form of STS is Space Transportation System. This was the official name for NASA’s Space Shuttle program. It was the fourth program with human space flights. The first project was Mercury, then Gemini, and the famous Apollo program came before this one.
This program started in 1981 and was the longest human space flight program in history, lasting until 2011. NASA focused on reusability, using the same Space Shuttle multiple times instead of making new ones each time.
In this program, two shuttles were lost: Challenger and Columbia. After the Columbia disaster, Discovery, Atlantis, and Endeavour were used. Today, you can still see these shuttles in museums.
Columbia was the first Space Shuttle to go into space in April 1981. Before the disaster, it completed 27 successful missions.
When you think about it, was it safe to use a shuttle so many times? Was this the reason for the disaster? The answer is no. The STS program was specifically designed for reusability. After every flight, there was a long process to inspect, repair, and prepare the shuttles.
The real cause of the Columbia accident was a very minor issue that we will discuss later. But the concept of reusability in the STS program was not wrong. The Columbia Space Shuttle’s 24th flight was Kalpana Chawla’s first space flight.
During this mission, Kalpana Chawla worked as a mission specialist. Her job involved operating a robotic arm to deploy a satellite that would study the outer layer of the sun. However, during this mission, something happened that shook her confidence. The 1360-kilogram satellite went out of control.
They couldn’t fix it, so after three days, they had to do a spacewalk to repair the satellite. Later, NASA scientists congratulated and praised them. They told the University of Texas magazine that it wasn’t their fault; someone else made a mistake in the satellite crew.
Because of this successful mission, Kalpana Chawla became the first woman of Indian origin and the first South Asian American to go to space. At that time, Indian Prime Minister Inder Kumar Gujral congratulated her.
When asked how she felt in space for the first time, Kalpana said that looking at the stars and galaxies made her feel like Earth was very small.
The flight lasted for sixteen days and included many scientific experiments. One experiment was to see how plants grow in microgravity. But the most interesting experiments were done on their second and last flight.
On January 16, 2003, at 10:39 AM, the Columbia Space Shuttle took off for the last time. This mission was originally planned for 2000-01 but got delayed 13 times. Finally, it launched from Kennedy Space Center in 2003.
The mission was STS-107, with a total of seven astronauts. The commander was Rick Husband and the payload commander was Michael Anderson. There were three mission specialists, including Kalpana Chawla. The pilot was William McCool, and Ilan Ramon from the Israel Space Agency was a payload specialist.
The astronauts had a mission to conduct experiments non-stop for 24 hours. This didn’t mean they had to stay awake the whole time; they worked in shifts. Over 16 days in space, they did about 80 different experiments in life science, material science, and physics.
Kalpana Chawla focused on how microgravity affects things like combustion, fire suppression, crystal growth, and even prostate cancer growth. This was fascinating because, on Earth, cells grow in flat layers in labs. But in space, cells grow in three dimensions, similar to how cancer tumors grow in our bodies. This helped scientists better understand tumor behavior.
A company called Spacehab also collaborated with NASA on this mission, involving universities from around the world.
Astronauts from countries like Australia, China, Israel, Japan, and the USA are working on experiments in space. Kids from these countries wanted to know how spiders, silkworms, organic crystals, bacteria, ants, and other things react in space. They were curious about these things and wanted to do experiments.
One interesting thing they found out was that the smell of flowers changes in space. The scent becomes different from what it is on Earth. During the mission, about 30% of the experiment data was transmitted back to Earth and saved at ground stations. Some successful experiments were recorded on video and will be given back to the kids. These include experiments with birds and crystals.
However, more than 40 experiments did not have any data sent back because of some issues.
The disaster was survived with only minor heat damage because the items were kept in aluminum canisters. After the accident, the surviving pieces were placed in these canisters with 5 or 6 batteries. Later missions, like the 2011 space mission, even included some of these surviving pieces.
What was the reason behind this incident ?
There was a big accident, and people wondered if the pilot made a mistake or if there was another problem. The truth is, none of this happened because of anyone’s mistake. In Columbia, the astronauts didn’t make any errors.
Just 3 to 4 minutes before the accident, no one knew what would happen. If you watch the video recording from a few minutes before the crash, you’ll see the astronauts joking and chatting. Everything seemed fine until 8:58 when they got an alert. They had no idea what was about to happen.
when astronauts saw an indication that things were not as they should be. The backup flight software of Columbia showed disabled messages, indicating a pressure loss in one of the landing areas.
This happened exactly one minute before when Columbia was supposed to land. People on the ground were trying to communicate about this issue.
Even though the astronauts didn’t have all the details, some people knew about this problem sixteen days earlier.
A year ago, David made an important announcement. However, it wasn’t actually a year ago; it was 16 days before the space shuttle launch.
During the launch of Columbia, 81 seconds after liftoff, a small piece of foam broke off from the shuttle. This foam piece hit the left wing of the shuttle. The foam only weighed 750 grams, but it caused damage.
Two or three days later, some NASA engineers informed their program manager about the damage. They suggested using American spy satellites to assess the extent of the damage. However, their chief wrote back with a different opinion.
Deep engineers reported that the chief denied the requisition. When this was discovered, people connected to it resigned from their positions. They were mistakenly confronted and two colors were used in the report. The general spied on the matter and presented findings.
The department was ready with spy cameras to welcome the inspection, but the position holders refused. An internal commission was set up to investigate, led by Molano. A detailed report was released in August, highlighting the accident and the investigation process.
This report mentioned NASA’s intelligence and human space flight chief’s failure to accept the offer. The spy satellite inspection was briefly included in the findings.
A cart is not moving properly and sometimes it stops. This problem started after some damage happened to the left wing of the cart. A small hole appeared, and as the cart moved down, the damage got worse. The hole caused air to leak, making the situation even more difficult.
The temperature inside the cart was affected by the air leak, and a sensor showed that it was getting hotter. Because of this, a part of the cart fell off and hit the ground. People on the ground saw this happen and recorded a video of it.
A small piece of foam caused a big accident, and seven people lost their lives. It’s important to mention that in 2003, a report showed that foam strikes like this are common worldwide. The report looked at 79 missions with photos available and found that 65 of them had foam strikes.
Foam strikes are a common problem, but the issue is where the foam hits. In 2008, another report came out from the Cruise Available Investigation, showing more details about these foam strike problems.
What happened in those last minutes ?
This report tried to reconstruct the crew’s last moments. What happened in those final minutes? There were warning signs and alerts going off everywhere. Problems with tire pressure and landing gear arose. The report also said that even with better equipment in the cabin, the astronauts’ lives couldn’t have been saved. NASA paused the problem for 28 years, and the most important thing is that the issue couldn’t have been saved.