American Space Company paid Tribute to Kalpana Chawla: Cargo Space‌ Craft

American aerospace, defence, and security company Northrop Grumman has named its NG-14 Cygnus spacecraft after NASA astronaut Kalpana Chawla.

The commercial cargo spacecraft that will lift off on September 29 onboard the Antares space launch vehicle from the Wallops Island launch site in Virginia, United States, is bound for the International Space Station.

It will fly under the name of Kalpana Chawla, the first woman of Indian origin to fly into space.The spacecraft will arrive at the ISS and be attached to it two days later.

The Cygnus capsule has been named the ‘SS Kalpana Chawla’ in memory of the mission specialist who died in 2003 along with six of her crewmates aboard the space shuttle Columbia.Northrop Grumman’s Cygnus NG-14 mission page reads: “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.

” Born in Haryana, India, Chawla had moved to the United States to complete her higher studies in aerospace engineering.She had begun her career at NASA as a researcher in fluid dynamics at the Ames Research Centre in California..