Credit: NASA Public Domain

Ms Kalpana Chawla , born in India, was the first Indian-American astronaut and the first Indian woman in space. Chawla first flew on Space Shuttle Columbia in 1997 already as a mission specialist, and the second and last time on the same Shuttle on its fatal flight (STS-107) in 2003, when she was one of the seven crew members killed in the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster. Dr Kass was a member of the ESA team who trained the STS-107 crew to operate the Biopack facility, a compact biological experiment facility, which flew with this mission. Kalpana Chawla was amongst the crew assigned as primary operators for the Biopack facility.