Kalpana Chawla: Biography & Columbia Disaster
Kalpana Chawla flew on two shuttle missions. CREDIT: NASA The tragic loss of the space shuttle Columbia killed seven astronauts. One of those, Kalpana Chawla, was the first Indian-born woman in space. Kalpana Chawla flew on two shuttle missions. Credit: NASA Born in Karnal, India, on July 1, 1961, Chawla was the youngest of four children. The name Kalpana means "idea" or "imagination." Her full name is pronounced CULL-puh-na CHAV-la , though she often went by the nickname K.C. Chawla obtained a degree in aeronautical engineering from Punjab Engineering College before immigrating to the United States and becoming a naturalized citizen in the 1980s. She earned a doctorate in aerospace engineering from the University of Colorado in 1988, having previously obtained her masters degree from the University of Texas. She began working at NASA's Ames Research Center the same year, working on power-lift computational fluid dynamics. In 1994, Chawla was selected