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<ul><li>The US aerospace and defence major <keyword id="141076" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Northrop-Grumman">Northrop Grumman</keyword> has named its newest spaceship the <keyword id="9909530" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="s-s-kalpana-chawla">S.S. Kalpana Chawla</keyword> after the first woman of Indian-origin to travel through space. </li><li>The S.S. <keyword id="363662" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Kalpana-Chawla">Kalpana Chawla</keyword> will tentatively launch on September 29 and carry 3,629 kilos of cargo to the <keyword id="6382020" type="LOCATION" weightage="20" keywordseo="international-space-station">International Space Station</keyword> (ISS).</li><li>According to Northrop Grumman, it is the company’s tradition to name its Cygnus spacecrafts after individuals who have made notable contributions to human spaceflight. </li></ul>The US-based aerospace and defence company, Northrop Grumman, is naming its next spaceship after the first woman of Indian-origin to travel through space — Kalpana Chawla. <div type="image" title="columbia-crew-browse_edited" msid="78018635" hostid="261" caption="&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;The Space Shuttle Columbia crew from left to right: David M. Brown, Rick D. Husband, Laurel B. Clark, Kalpana Chawla, Michael P. Anderson, William C. McCool, Ilan Ramon&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;"></div> The S.S. Kalpana Chawla will be the company’s next Cygnus spacecraft to make its way to the International Space Station (ISS). “It is the company’s tradition to name each Cygnus after an individual who has played a pivotal role in human spaceflight,” Northrop Grumman said in a statement. The spacecraft is tentatively scheduled to launch from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA) Wallop Flight Facility in Virginia on September 29. The S.S. Kalpana Chawla will deliver 3,629 kilos of cargo to the ISS that will be loaded onto the spacecraft 24 hours before liftoff. <div type="image" title="kalpana1_edited" msid="78018755" hostid="261" caption="&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;Astronaut Kalpana Chawla, STS-107 mission specialist, prepares to simulate a parachute drop into water during an emergency bailout training session in the Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory (NBL) near the Johnson Space Center (JSC)&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;"></div> The spacecraft is not the first time that Chawla has been honoured for her contribution to space. In 2003, shortly after Chawla’s death, India’s Prime Minister at the time — Atal Bihari Vajpayee — renamed the MetSat-1 to Kalpana-1 in her honour. NASA has also named a supercomputer after Chawla. It was the world’s first single-system image (SSI) Linus supercomputer. In 2004, it was integrated, as the first node, into the 20-node Columbia supercomputer. <div type="image" title="Columbiahills_edited" msid="78018945" hostid="261" caption="&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;NASA&amp;#39;s Mars Exploration Rover Spirit spots Columbia Hills&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;"></div> On the Red Planet, a chain of seven peaks dubbed the Columbia Hills are each named after the astronauts that perished in the Columbia disaster — one of which is Chawla’s namesake. Who was Kalpana Chawla? Kalpana Chawla was born and brought up in Karnal. She moved to the US after getting her bachelor’s degree in aeronautical engineering from India’s Punjab Engineering College in 1982. Two years down the line, she received her master’s degree in aerospace engineering and continued to pursue her doctorate. Chawla embarked on her career with NASA at the Ames Research Centre in California in 1988, but left for a brief period, before returning as an astronaut candidate in 1994. <div type="image" title="kalpana3_edited" msid="78018690" hostid="261" caption="&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;STS-87 Mission Specialist Kalpana Chawla sits in her launch and entry suit in the Operations and Checkout Building before she and the five other crew members of STS-87 depart for Launch Pad 39B. This was Chawla&amp;#39;s first mission for NASA.&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;"></div> Her first space flight was the STS-87 on Space Shuttle Columbia in 1997 as a mission specialist and primary robotic arm operator. She returned to space again in 2003 aboard the Columbia for a 16-day research flight during which the crew of the STS-107 performed nearly 80 experiments studying Earth and space science. <div type="image" title="kalpana4_edited" msid="78018725" hostid="261" caption="&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;STS-107 Mission Specialist Kalpana Chawla scans paperwork for equipment at SPACEHAB at Cape Canaveral in Florida during crew training&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;"></div> However, during her second stint through space, Chawla and her six crew members on the STS-107 perished on 1 February 2003 as the spacecraft was reentering the Earth’s atmosphere. Why did Kalpana Chawla’s spacecraft crash? During the launch of the STS-107, a piece of the foam insulation from the space shuttle’s external tank broke off and hit the left wing on the orbiter. <div type="image" title="STS107_edited" msid="78018844" hostid="261" caption="&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;Space Shuttle Columbia takes off on mission STS 107 on 16 January 2003 with Kalpana Chawla and six other crew members on board&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;"></div> When the spacecraft re-entered Earth’s atmosphere, the damage allowed hot atmospheric gases to get inside and destroy the internal wing structure. This left the spacecraft unstable, and as it came down towards Earth — it broke apart. After the disaster, space shuttle flight operations were suspended for more than two years. <div type="image" title="debirs_edited" msid="78018888" hostid="261" caption="&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;Columbia main engine powerhead recovered from Fort Polk in Louisiana&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;"></div> SEE ALSO: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/science/space/news/musks-spacex-completes-first-polar-orbit-in-off-shore-landing-by-falcon-9-booster/articleshow/77845337.cms">Elon Musk owned SpaceX completes its first polar orbit mission as Falcon 9’s booster nails off-shore landing</a> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/science/space/news/isro-chandrayaan-1-and-nasa-spot-rust-on-moon-earth-atmosphere-could-be-the-reason-why/articleshow/77926459.cms">ISRO's Chandrayaan 1 spots rusting on the Moon — NASA scientists believe Earth's atmosphere could be the reason why</a> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/science/space/news/nasa-congratulates-indian-scientists-for-discovering-one-of-the-farthest-galaxies-in-the-universe/articleshow/77883347.cms">NASA congratulates Indian scientists for discovering one of the farthest galaxies in the universe</a>

Northrop Grumman names its next space ship after Kalpana Chawla — the first woman of Indian-origin to go to space

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Northrop Grumman launched a cargo resupply mission to the International Space Station at 9:16 p.m. ET on October 2.</li><li>An enterprising photographer from Philadelphia managed to record the 14-story rocket flying in front of a nearly full moon.</li><li>Professional launch photographers believe it's one of the first such moon-transiting rocket-launch photos in two decades.</li></ul>Minutes before liftoff of a NASA rocket mission on October 2, Steve Rice realized he was in the wrong place for a photographic fantasy he'd waited years to make real.Rice, a 33-year-old Texas native who calls Philadelphia home, had documented about half a dozen space launches up-close. But to challenge himself and record a unique perspective of spaceflight, Rice committed to, one day, taking photos and video of a rocket flying in front of the moon."It's been in my mind for a long time as a fantasy, because — living up here — I don't get too many launches" near home, Rice told Business Insider. "One of my favorite things to shoot is the space station transiting the moon or the sun through my telescope. So the thought of the rocket going across the moon has been on my mind. But I never thought there'd be an opportunity to do that."Yet Rice saw his chance when Northrop Grumman announced it'd fly the Cygnus NG-14 cargo resupply spaceship, dubbed the "S.S. Kalpana Chawla," from NASA's launch facility at Wallops Island, Virginia, a three-and-a-half-hour drive away. The mission was to fly 5,000 pounds of air, food, water, spacesuit parts, and scientific experiments — including a <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/toilet-nasa-orion-spaceship-moon-mission-odor-control-problem-2020-9">$23 million titanium space-toilet prototype</a> — to the International Space Station.Photographing anything fast <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/solar-eclipse-space-station-nasa-photos-video-2017-8">flying past the moon</a> requires a combination of luck, planning, and skill, due to the heavenly body's small relative size (roughly that of a thumbnail on an outstretched arm) and constant motion. Doing so with rockets require an excess of all three virtues, though, due to additional challenges of geography, weather, curved flight paths, and fickleness.In September, for example, nearly all orbital-class launch attempts from US soil were scrubbed. The Cygnus spacecraft launch on an Antares rocket was no different: Eighteen seconds before planned liftoff on October 1, the mission was postponed due to a ground control equipment problem, NASA said.Rice had driven out for that attempt, losing most of a day and a lot of gas money in the process. He said he wasn't sure he'd try again for the next attempt, the following day at 9:18 p.m. ET."My brother and his girlfriend were visiting from Atlanta for the week, and I'm the crazy guy who wants to abandon them at night, and go drive three hours down to maybe see a launch," Rice said.But he got in the car.He was too committed to the idea, having studied weather forecasts, researched shooting alignments and settings with specialized apps (like <a href="https://www.photoephemeris.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Photographer's Ephemeris</a> and <a href="https://flightclub.io/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Flight Club</a>), and pored over maps to stake out the perfect spot: the shoulder of a road near a corn field 3.4 miles from NASA's launch pad. From there, he calculated, the moon would be rising above the eastern horizon, to align perfectly with the rocket's path to orbit about 22 seconds after liftoff.With "a big stroke of luck," he said, he could fit the rocket's 139-foot-tall frame inside a barely waned full moon.With just 16 minutes left in the countdown, though, Rice triple-checked his location — and found himself setting up his gear thousands of feet from where he was supposed to be."I used a map to count telephone poles from intersections, since there weren't any other discernible details," he said. "But at night, it was difficult to find the right spot, and I was set up at the wrong near the wrong telephone pole ... I had to throw everything back into the car and drive down the road to the right spot and get set up again."He pulled off the road near the correct telephone pole, then put up a tripod and camera with a 300-millimeter telephoto lens he'd bought on Ebay for $20. Ten feet away, he erected another tripod with a camera, this one with a small telescope attached to it, hit the video-record button, and jogged back to his still camera.Shortly after seeing the light of the launch, he held down the camera's shutter — what he called the "spray and pray" method — in hopes of getting some frames of the rocket's journey toward space. Moments later, the machine thundered across the moon, right where it was supposed to be.<h2>Watch a 14-story rocket journey across the moon</h2>The nine images Rice <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/CF7lRLoJBfH/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">shared on Instagram</a>, embedded above with his permission, show the full, stunning sequence of pictures."This was the only time I've actually shouted after getting the shot," Rice said, including some "undisclosed" curse words. "I was out alone on the side of a road next to harvested cornfield."But Rice said the video he recorded, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=clC0yO3LZGk" target="_blank" rel="noopener">uploaded to YouTube</a> and embedded below with his permission, made him even more giddy than the still photos.The footage, shot in 4K ultra-high resolution, shows the explosive shockwaves of two fuel-devouring Russian rocket engines emanating into the air around the rocket. Following it, the engine's exhaust disturbs the moon's light into a chaos of schlieren — when variations in the density of a gas or liquid cause light to refract and bend."It's like a mirage," Rice said.Rice said it was "a big stroke of luck" that he managed to record the scene with both photos and video."It's amazing how accurate and more or less lucky you have to be to make sure the alignment is right," he said.As an example, he said, a photographer stationed a mile closer to the pad didn't manage to pull it off. Rice also noted that the mission had a five-minute window to launch. If mission controllers had delayed the liftoff to the end of that window, he would have been 250 feet away from where he was supposed to be — not a lot of time to move and precisely set up a bunch of gear alone.After Rice posted the photos to Instagram, he saw a tide of congratulations.One came from Carleton Bailie, a launch photographer of many decades, who said it took 20 years for someone "to get one" rocket-and-moon shot like it. Bailie added that the last time was likely in 2000, when he took a similar photo during the launch of an Atlas rocket. Ben Cooper, SpaceX's go-to launch photographer, also chimed in."Great job! It's been a long time since someone got it," Cooper wrote, confirming that the photos are likely the first of their kind in a couple decades, adding: "I keep pretty good track of photos and have been doing so for 20 years now."

Unbelievable photos caught a NASA rocket mission flying in front of the moon. A photographer explains the crazy steps he took to get the rare images and video

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Northrop Grumman names its next space ship after Kalpana Chawla — the first woman of Indian-origin to go to space

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Unbelievable photos caught a NASA rocket mission flying in front of the moon. A photographer explains the crazy steps he took to get the rare images and video

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