COLUMBIA SPACE SHUTTLE AND KALPNA CHAWLA

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SATURDAY 01 FEB, 2003
Space Shuttle Columbia blew up and disintegrated in flames 39 miles over Texas Saturday morning, killing all seven astronauts aboard and scattering debris over up to four states and the Gulf of Mexico.

The seven crew members -- six Americans and the first Israeli to go into space -- were scheduled to touch down in just 16 minutes at Cape Canaveral, Fla., when the shuttle broke up at 207,135 feet. The astronauts had been orbiting the Earth for 16 days

The shuttle flight was the 113th in the shuttle program's 22 years and the 28th flight for Columbia, NASA oldest shuttle.

Just in the past week, NASA observed the anniversary of its only two other space tragedies, the Challenger explosion on Jan. 28, 1986, and the Apollo spacecraft fire that killed three on Jan. 27, 1967.



SOME FACTS ABOUT KALPANA CHAWLA
First and only Indian-American in space (she was born in India and became a naturalized U.S. citizen). Selected as an astronaut in 1994; first mission in 1997, this was her second mission. U.S. doctorate & M.S. in aerospace engineering and B.S. in aeronautical engineering from India. Second Indian in space, after Indian citizen Rakesh Sharma, who flew on a Soviet mission. One of only a handful of Asian American astronauts and the only South Asian Married to Frenchman Jean-Pierre Harrison, a freelance flying instructor.

PERSONAL DATA:
Born in Karnal, India. Kalpana Chawla enjoys flying, hiking, back-packing, and reading. She holds Certificated Flight Instructor's license with an airplane rating, Commercial Pilot's licenses for single- and multi-engine land and seaplanes, and Gliders, and an instrument rating. She enjoys flying aerobatics and tail-wheel airplanes.

EDUCATION:
Graduated from Tagore School, Karnal, India, in 1976. Bachelor of science degree in aeronautical engineering from Punjab Engineering College, India, 1982. Master of science degree in aerospace engineering from University of Texas, 1984. Doctorate of philosophy in aerospace engineering from University of Colorado, 1988.

EXPERIENCE:
In 1988, Kalpana Chawla started work at NASA Ames Research Center in the area of powered-lift computational fluid dynamics. Her research concentrated on simulation of complex air flows encountered around aircraft such as the Harrier in "ground-effect." Following completion of this project she supported research in mapping of flow solvers to parallel computers, and testing of these solvers by carrying out powered lift computations. In 1993 Kalpana Chawla joined Overset Methods Inc., Los Altos, California, as Vice President and Research Scientist to form a team with other researchers specializing in simulation of moving multiple body problems. She was responsible for development and implementation of efficient techniques to perform aerodynamic optimization. Results of various projects that Kalpana Chawla participated in are documented in technical conference papers and Journals.

NASA EXPERIENCE:
Selected by NASA in December 1994, Kalpana Chawla reported to the Johnson Space Center in March 1995 as an astronaut candidate in the 15th Group of Astronauts. After completing a year of training and evaluation, she was assigned to work technical issues for the Astronaut Office EVA/Robotics and Computer Branches. Most recently, Kalpana Chawla served as mission specialist on STS-87 (November 19 to December 5, 1997). STS-87 was the fourth U.S Microgravity Payload flight and focused on experiments designed to study how the weightless environment of space affects various physical processes, and on observations of the Sun's outer atmospheric layers. Two members of the crew performed an EVA (spacewalk) which featured the manual capture of a Spartan satellite, in addition to testing EVA tools and procedures for future Space Station assembly. In completing her first mission, Kalpana Chawla traveled 6.5 million miles in 252 orbits of the Earth and logged 376 hours and 34 minutes in space.



SOME FACTS ABOUT COLUMBIA SPACE SHUTTLE
Columbia is the oldest of NASA's shuttle fleet, first launched in 1981. It was on its 28th mission. The shuttle underwent an extensive, 17-month overhaul that began in September 1999. It rejoined the shuttle fleet in February 2001 and flew its first mission after the upgrades in March 2002.

• Columbia was delivered to the Kennedy Space Center in March 1979. Two years later, April 12, 1981, it lifted off from the Kennedy Space Center to become the first shuttle in orbit. (Space shuttle Enterprise was the program's test vehicle and not equipped for spaceflight.)
  
  
• Columbia's successful completion of the Orbital Flight Test Program — missions STS-1 through 4 — proved that a winged, reusable spaceship could successfully operate in space.
  
  
• Four ships joined the orbiter fleet over the next decade; Challenger in 1982; Discovery in 1983; Atlantis in 1985, and Endeavour, built in 1991 to replace the Challenger after it exploded during liftoff in 1986.
  
  
• Columbia was commonly referred to as OV-102, for Orbiter Vehicle-102. Empty Weight was 158,289 lbs at rollout and 178,000 lbs with main engines installed.
  
  
• Since 1988, Columbia went through more than 1,540 modification packages and, due to advances in thermal protection technology, Columbia eventually flew with 5,550 fewer tiles than were carried on its first mission.
  
  
• During its last Orbiter Major Modification (OMM) period, Columbia underwent a substantial weight reduction with the removal of more than 1,000 pounds of Development Flight Instrumentation wiring and hardware no longer required.
  
  
• On September 24, 1999, Columbia was transported to Palmdale, Calif., for its second Orbiter Maintenance Down Period, or ODMP (its first was in 1994). While in California, worker performed more than 100 modifications on the vehicle.
  
  
• Columbia was the second orbiter outfitted with the multi-functional electronic display system (MEDS) or "glass cockpit." (Atlantis received this upgrade in 2002.) The full-color, flat-panel displays installed on its flight deck improves crew interaction with the orbiter during flight and reduces the high cost of maintaining the outdated electromechanical cockpit displays currently onboard.
  
  
• While at Palmdale, Columbia's 100 miles of wiring were examined as part of NASA's fleet-wide wiring inspection. The wiring problem was first identified on Columbia as a result of the STS-93 mission.
  
  
• Other, more recent achievements for Columbia included the recovery of the Long Duration Exposure Facility (LDEF) satellite from orbit during mission STS-32 in January 1990 and the STS-40 Spacelab Life Sciences mission in June 1991 — the first manned Spacelab mission totally dedicated to human medical research.
  
  
• Columbia was named after a small sailing vessel that operated out of Boston in 1792 and explored the mouth of the Columbia River. One of the first ships of the U.S. Navy to circumnavigate the globe was named Columbia. The command module for the Apollo 11 lunar mission was also named Columbia.

• Jan. 27, 1967: Astronauts Gus Grissom, Edward H. White and Roger B. Chaffee die when a fire sweeps their command module during a ground test at Kennedy Space Center.
  
  
• April 24, 1967: Soviet cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov is killed when his Soyuz I spacecraft crashes on return to Earth.
  
  
• June 29, 1971: Cosmonauts Georgy Dobrovolsky, Vladislav Volkov and Viktor Patsayev die during re-entry of their Soyuz 11 spacecraft. A government commission disclosed that the three died 30 minutes before landing because a faulty valve depressurized the spacecraft.
  
  
• Jan. 28, 1986: The space shuttle Challenger explodes 73 seconds after launch, killing all seven astronauts aboard, including Christa McAuliffe, intended to be the first teacher in space. Other astronauts killed were Francis "Dick" Scobee, Michael J. Smith, Ellison S. Onizuka, Judith A. Resnik, Ronald E. McNair and Gregory B. Jarvis.
  
  
• Feb. 1, 2003: Space shuttle Columbia breaks apart in flames about 203,000 feet over Texas, 16 minutes before it was supposed to touch down in Florida. All seven aboard were killed: William McCool, Rick Husband, Michael Anderson, Kalpana Chawla, David Brown, Laurel Clark and Ilan Ramon, who was Israel's first astronaut.

• May 5, 1961: U.S. launches first American, astronaut Alan Shepard Jr., into space, on a 15-minute, 22-second suborbital flight.
  
  
• May 25, 1961: President Kennedy declares the American national space objective to put a man on the moon.
  
  
• Feb. 20, 1962: John Glenn becomes first American to orbit Earth.
  
  
• Jan. 27, 1967: Three U.S. astronauts die when a fire sweeps the Apollo I command module during a ground test at Kennedy Space Center.
  
  
• Dec. 21, 1968: First manned spacecraft to orbit moon, Apollo 8, comes within 70 miles of lunar surface.
  
  
• July 20, 1969: Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin of Apollo XI spend 21 hours on the moon, 2 of those outside the capsule.
  
  
• Dec. 7-19, 1972: Apollo 17 mission that includes the longest and last stay of man on the moon — 74 hours, 59 minutes — by astronauts Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmidt.
  
  
• May 14, 1973: Skylab I, first U.S. orbiting laboratory, launched.
  
  
• July 17-19, 1975: U.S. astronauts and Soviet cosmonauts participate in Apollo-Soyuz Test Project, docking together in space for two days.
  
  
• April 12, 1981: Shuttle Columbia becomes first winged spaceship to orbit Earth and return to airport landing.
  
  
• June 18, 1983: Sally Ride becomes first American woman in space.
  
  
• Feb. 7, 1984: Astronaut Bruce McCandless performs man's first untethered spacewalk with a Manned Maneuvering Unit off the Challenger space shuttle.
  
  
• Jan. 28, 1986: Challenger shuttle explodes 73 seconds after launch, killing its crew of seven.
  
  
• March 14, 1995: Norman Thagard becomes first American to be launched on a Russian rocket. Two days later, he becomes first American to visit the Russian space station Mir.
  
  
• June 29, 1995: Atlantis docks with Mir in first shuttle-station hookup.
  
  
• Sept. 26, 1996: Shannon Lucid returns to Earth after 188-day Mir mission, a U.S. space endurance record and a world record for women.
  
  
• Oct. 29, 1998: Glenn, now 77, returns to space aboard shuttle Discovery, becoming the oldest person ever to fly in space.
  
  
• May 29, 1999: Discovery becomes first shuttle to dock with the international space station, a multinational, permanent, orbiting research laboratory.
  
  
• Nov. 2, 2000: An American and Russian crew begins living aboard the international space station.
  
  
• Feb. 1, 2003: Shuttle Columbia breaks apart over Texas, 16 minutes before it was supposed to land in Florida.