Her first space mission (Mission STS 87) began on 19 November 1997 with six other astronaust on the space shuttle columbia.On her first mission that lasted for 15 days, 16 hours, 34 minites and 4 seconds, she travelled 6.5 million miles.She was responsible for deploying the spartan satellite which however malfunctioned, necessitating a spacewalk by winston scott and tako doi, two of her fellow astronaust to retriven the satellite.
In 2000 she was selected for her second space mission STS 107. This mission was repeatedly delayed due to scheduling conflicts and technical problems. On 16 January 2003, kalpana Chawla finally started her new mission with six other space crew on the ill-fated space shuttle columbia.Shw was one of the mission specialists.Chawlas responsibilities included the microgravity experimests for which the crew conducted nearly 80 experiments studying earth and space science,advanced techology development , and astroaut health and safety.
After a 16 day scientific mission in space on 1 februsry 2003 columbia disintegrated over texas during its re-entry info the earths atmosphere.All the crew in columbia including chawla died only 16 minites prior to their scheduled landing.Investigation shows that accident happened due to a damage in one of columbias wings caused by a piece of insulating foam from the external fuel taank peeling off during the launceh.During the intense heat of re-entry,hot gases penetrated the interior of the wing, destroying the support structure and causing the rest of the shuttle to break down......
