Fans and friends remember Indian astronaut killed in Columbia
NEW DELHI (AP) — Hundreds of fans, friends and relatives on Sunday mourned Kalpana Chawla, the Indian-born astronaut killed when the U.S. space shuttle Columbia crashed a year ago.
Children in Karnal, Chawla’s hometown in northern India, braved chilly weather and gathered to hold prayers at the high school where Chawla studied. A book about Chawla was distributed at the Tagore Bal Niketan school.
“The book chronicles the journey of her life, a journey in which she had … achieved a lot,” said Rakesh Sharma, who traveled on a Soviet spacecraft in 1984, becoming India’s first man in space.
Chawla, 41, was one of seven astronauts on board the Columbia.
A chunk of insulating foam the size of a suitcase tore a hole in the shuttle’s left wing 82 seconds after liftoff. The gap let in searing gases two weeks later as the orbiter was returning to Earth, and the ship broke apart over Texas on Feb. 1, killing everyone on board.
Prayers, exhibitions and talks were held in several other Indian cities to mark the anniversary of Chawla’s death.
Her first space flight in 1997 — the first by an Indian-born woman — had made her a powerful symbol for women in India.
“We are remembering her achievements. What she achieved is not yet known to many Indians,” said her father, B.L. Chawla.
Elsewhere, an artist built a 30-foot (9-meter) bronze sculpture of Chawla in the southern city of Madras. In Bangalore, the country’s technology hub, an exhibition on space research was held for school children.
Chawla was the youngest daughter of a wealthy factory-owning Indian family. She earned a doctorate in aerospace engineering from the University of Colorado before becoming an astronaut. She became an American citizen in the 1980s.
Her 1997 journey was also difficult. Technical mistakes she made on that flight caused a satellite to tumble out of control, forcing other astronauts to retrieve it on a spacewalk. NASA later acknowledged that crew instructions may not have been clear.