Honeysuckle Chapter 4 Kalpana Chawla Summary

An Indian – American Woman in Space: Kalpana Chawla Summary

This summary is about a India born Astronaut Kalpana Chawla.

She was born in a Karnal, small city of Punjab.

Education and job:

She did her schooling from Tagore School and joined an engineering college. From engineering college, she took a graduate degree in as Bachelor of Science in aeronautical engineering.

After that, she went to America to get a Master’s degree (PhD) in Aerospace Engineering.

After the PhD, she learned to fly aeroplanes and became a flight instructor.

Now she looked for NASA and became a Research Scientist there. In 1994 She was selected as a candidate to go in space.

Marriage and Nationality:

Kalpana Chawala was born in India, so by birth, she was a citizen of India.

During aeroplane training, she married to an American “Jean-Pierre Harrison. By this, she became a naturalised American.

Space Program

Her first mission started in 1996 by Columbia space shuttle. There she lived in space for 16 days. During these days she did multiple experiments in space and made 252 rounds of earth, a total of 10.45 million kilometres.

Her second mission was ill-fated. While returning to earth, her space shuttle burned into streaks in 2003 killing all seven astronauts.

Her life inspires us to work on the goal.