US spacecraft named after Kalpana Chawla honoring her contribution to aerospace field
- IndiaGlitz, [Thursday,September 10 2020]
A US commercial spacecraft owned by Northrop Grumman has been named after the late Kalpana Chawla in honor of her pioneering effort in the field. The official statement from the company reads Northrop Grumman is proud to name the NG-14 Cygnus spacecraft after former astronaut Kalpana Chawla. It is the company’s tradition to name each Cygnus after an individual who has played a pivotal role in human spaceflight. Chawla was selected in honor of her prominent place in history as the first woman of Indian descent to go to space,
The commercial spacecraft the S.S.Kalpana Chawla is scheduled to launch on the NG-14 mission atop a Northrop Grumman Antares rocket from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport (MARS) at NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia on Sept. 29 at 10:26 p.m. EDT (0226 GMT Sept. 30). The spacecraft will arrive at and be attached to the space station two days later.
Haryana born Kalpana Chawla moved to the states for her higher studies in aerospace engineering and made history by becoming the first woman of Indian origin on space. While her first voyage as a NASA astronaut was successful her second onboard the STS-107 conducting research on the Columbia space station ended tragically as an undetected malfunction destroyed the craft while returning to earth on February 1st 2003 killing all its crew including Chawla.