Kalpana the star

Kalpana the star

Growing up years

Born in karnal on July-1-1963. Her parents were Bansari Lal Chawla and Sanjogta. She used to fancy flying the puspaka plane. She would sleep in the frontyard of her house during summer

Early Education

After her school education she chose science and completed her PUC. At school in her drawing class she would fill her pages with planes and stars. Her family was of the view that he should choose Electronics, Electrical or Architecture. She insisted on Aerospace Engineering.

Her Higher Education

She got admission at the Punjab Engineering college at Chandigarh. Kalpana earned her master's degree at the University of Texas in 1984 She earned her Ph.D from Colorado University in 1988.

Career

Working in NASA

She worked at NASA for 6 years. She was selected as an astronaut candidate and was trained for 3 years. Her first flight was in Columbia from November 19toDec 5,1997 She went into space again on Jan-16,2000 and conducted 80 experiments. She travelled 6.5 million miles in 252 orbits of the Earth. As it was re-entering Earth 7 astronauts perished over Texas. Shortly-India re named it's 1st weather satellite as Kalpana-1.