Modern figure
Kalpana Chawla
ਕਲਪਨਾ ਚਾਵਲਾکلپنا چاولا
Astronaut from Karnal, the first woman born in India to fly into space, who died when the shuttle Columbia broke apart in 2003.
Kalpana Chawla was born in Karnal, then in the Punjab, to a family that had come from west Punjab at Partition. She studied aeronautical engineering at Chandigarh and in the United States, worked for NASA as an engineer and became an astronaut.
She first flew on the space shuttle Columbia in 1997. On her second flight, in February 2003, Columbia broke apart as it came back to earth, killing all seven of its crew.