Kalpana Chawla’s Death Weighed On NASA In Sunita Williams Decision

New Delhi: 

The death of Indian-origin American astronaut Kalpana Chawla and six others on February 1, 2003 when the space shuttle Columbia broke up and burnt as it re-entered the Earth’s atmosphere played heavily in the minds of NASA officials, who decided to keep another Indian-origin American astronaut, Sunita Williams, in space for eight months.

Before the Columbia accident, the space shuttle Challenger had exploded and killed all crew on January 28, 1986. In all, 14 astronauts have lost their lives in these accidents.

The two accidents “very much affected the decision” to bring Boeing Starliner back without the astronauts, said NASA chief Bill Nelson, who is himself an astronaut and has been part of the investigations into the two space shuttle accidents. He said “obvious mistakes were made” by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).