Kalpana Chawla on second space mission this week

Monday, 13 January 2003, 20:30 IST
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WASHINGTON: Kalpana Chawla, the first Indian American woman to be sent to space, will embark on her second voyage Thursday when space shuttle Columbia takes off from the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida. Sources at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) said Sunday that at the conclusion of the STS-107 Flight Readiness Review at the Kennedy Space Centre, managers targeted Space Shuttle Columbia for launch on an international mission devoted to space research. This will be the first dedicated research mission to be flown by the shuttle in almost three years. STS stands for "Space Transportation System", aka the Space Shuttle, and "107" is the "flight tail number" or the 107th flight of the Space Shuttle, although the order of missions may have changed after assignment of the flight number. India-born space engineer Kalpana Chawla will be among the seven-member new mission led by Commander Rick Husband, a colonel in the U.S. Air Force. Navy Commander William McCool will serve as pilot. The payload commander will be Lieutenant Colonel Michael Anderson. Mission specialists will include Chawla, Captain David Brown, and Commander Laurel Clark. Payload specialist Ilan Ramon, the first Israeli astronaut, will complete the crew. The 24-hour science operations will be divided into two alternating shifts. Husband, Chawla, Clark and Ramon form the Red Team, while McCool, Brown and Anderson are the Blue Team. Columbia will carry in its payload bay the first SPACEHAB Research Double Module, which will hold most of the mission's more than 80 experiments - involving more than 70 scientists worldwide - that will investigate space, life and physical sciences. Earlier Chawla was one of the six-astronaut crew that flew the Columbia Flight STS-87 on November 19, 1997. She then travelled over 6.5 million miles in 252 orbits of the earth, logging more than 375 hours in space. NASA sources said the research on STS-107 builds on "our experiences with Skylab and Spacelab, and supports longer, more ambitious research aboard the International Space Station (ISS). The Shuttle Columbia and its crew of seven will devote this 16-day mission to a mixed complement of competitively selected and commercially sponsored research in the space, life, and physical sciences." Rakesh Sharma was the first Indian in space but only flew as a token international passenger aboard a Soviet spaceflight in 1982. Sharma was then a squadron leader in the Indian Air Force. Unlike him, Chawla is a qualified career astronaut with important mission responsibilities. NASA sources said Columbia would launch between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. (U.S. time) Thursday for the 16-day flight. A precise launch time would be announced about 24 hours before lift-off. Columbia is scheduled to return to the Kennedy Space Centre on February 1. STS-107 will be the 28th flight for Columbia and the 113th in shuttle history.
Source: IANS