Born July 1, 1961

Karnal, India

Died February 1, 2003

In Columbia explosion upon return to Earth

Astronaut and aeronautical engineer

Kalpana Chawla. AP/Wide World Photos.

"You're floating [in space]…. Earth is very beautiful. I wish everyone could see it."

Kalpana Chawla was the first female astronaut from India. To pursue her dream of flying airplanes and becoming an aerospace engineer, she studied physics, chemistry, and math in high school and excelled at an engineering college in India. She then took on advanced studies in the United States. She joined the American space program in 1995 and traveled millions of miles in space, orbiting Earth hundreds of times on two space-shuttle missions. She was a flight engineer and mission specialist on the space shuttle Columbia, which broke up sixteen minutes before it was scheduled to land on February 1, 2003. Chawla and her six fellow astronauts were killed.

Stargazer and Trailblazer