Kalpana Chawla’s ‘tragic’ mission, a lesson for Sunita Williams’ Starliner: the story of a ‘risky’ entry to Earth

NASA astronauts Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore will not be returning home on Boeing’s spacecraft. The Starliner will return unmanned on September 6, while the two astronauts will arrive on Earth on a SpaceX ship in February next year. What could have prompted the US space agency to take such a decision? Other reasons include past mistakes and two space shuttle disasters.

“We have made mistakes in the past. We lost two space shuttles because of a lack of culture. “Where information could emerge…” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said on August 24. Nelson said this when he announced that NASA astronauts Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore to leave Boeing’s Starliner to return home on the SpaceX Dragon Crew spacecraft.

By saying “two space shuttles,” Nelson may have been referring to the space shuttle Challenger in 1986 and the space shuttle Columbia in 2003.

The Columbia disaster is said to have “changed NASA forever.” The mission was called STS-107 and Kalpana Chawla She was part of it. Mission specialist Chawla was among seven astronauts who lost their lives minutes before landing on Earth in 2003. She was the first Indian-American astronaut and the first Indian woman in space.

A memory of Kalpana Chawla’s STS-107 mission

STS-107 was the first shuttle mission in 2003. The space shuttle Columbia lifted off on January 16, 2003. It was a 17-day mission that included numerous microgravity experiments. It was a “strictly multidisciplinary microgravity and Earth science research mission” and included more than 80 international experiments.

The seven crew members were:

1. Rick D. Husband, Commander
2. William C. McCool, pilot
3. Kalpana Chawla, Mission Specialist
4. David M. Brown, Mission Specialist
5. Laurel B. Clark, Mission Specialist
6. Michael P. Anderson, Payload Commander
7. Ilan Ramon, Payload Specialist

Everything was going well until disaster struck during the return mission. Upon re-entry to Earth, the orbiter and its seven crew members were lost about 15 minutes before Columbia was scheduled to land at the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in the United States, NASA said.

‘Tragic for the nation’

Landing was scheduled for February 1, 2003. NASA explained that upon reentry, the shuttle Columbia suffered a “catastrophic failure due to a fault that occurred during launch…” Columbia and its crew were lost during reentry over eastern Texas at approximately 9 a.m. EST.

“Communication and tracking of the shuttle was lost at 9 am in a altitude of approximately 203,000 feet above north central Texas while traveling at approximately 12,500 miles per hour (Mach 18). No communications or tracking information was received at Mission Control after that time,” NASA said then. saying.

Then-NASA Administrator Sean O’Keefe had said: “This is truly a tragic day for the NASA family, for the families of the astronauts who flew on STS-107, and it’s also tragic for the nation.”

What caused the Columbia disaster? It started during launch

NASA had investigated a foam impact that occurred during launch. Space.com explained that approximately 82 seconds after Columbia lifted off the ground, a piece of foam fell from a “bipod ramp” that was part of a structure holding the external tank to the shuttle.

“Video of the launch appeared to show foam hitting Columbia’s left wing. It was later discovered that a hole in the left wing allowed the foam to Atmospheric gases leaked into the shuttle as it underwent its fiery reentry.“which resulted in the loss of the sensors and eventually of Columbia itself and the astronauts aboard,” the report added.

Kalpana Chawla’s space shuttle Columbia broke into 80,000 pieces in the sky

Just before the accident, Columbia was traveling at 18 times the speed of sound near Dallas. Mission Control tried several times to contact the astronauts, but was unsuccessful.

Twelve minutes later, a mission controller received a phone call. The caller said that a television network showed a video of the shuttle breaking up in the skySpace.com reported.

Following the incident, a seven-month investigation was conducted and a four-month search was conducted across Texas to recover debris. Over the following months, investigators recovered more than 83,000 pieces of debris.

“Nearly 85,000 pieces of shuttle debris were sent to Kennedy Space Center and stored in the Columbia Debris Hangar near the Shuttle Landing Facility,” NASA said. “About 38 percent of the shuttle Columbia was ultimately recovered,” the US space agency added.

Returning to Earth from space is always “risky”

Scientists have repeatedly reiterated that Human spaceflight is risky, and re-entry into space is even riskier.“Spaceflight is risky, even in its safest and most routine forms. A test flight, by its nature, is neither safe nor routine,” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said on August 24.

Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) Somanath had earlier explained that The return trip “is more dangerous.” that the next trip.”

ISRO chief explains why re-entry is risky

While explaining the landing process of India’s upcoming mission to the Moon, Chandrayaan 4, Back on Earth, Somanath said landing on Earth is “much more difficult” and “equally challenging than landing on the lunar surface.”

This is because “there is no atmosphere on the Moon, but there is on Earth,” Somanath explained, adding that “we have to overcome atmospheric heat etc…” during the return mission.

Taking a lesson from previous failures and the risky re-entry process, Bill Nelson said: “The decision to keep Butch and Suni aboard the International Space Station “And bringing home Boeing’s uncrewed Starliner is a result of our commitment to safety – our core value and our North Star.”

Kalpana Chawla’s mission, Sunita Williams’ Starliner and the added risk

The launch of Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft, which carried NASA’s Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore to the International Space Station on June 5, was delayed twice. Despite problems with the spacecraft, it launched on June 5 and suffered anomalies during the journey.

The Starliner, originally scheduled to launch on May 6, 2024, was delayed “due to a suspected oxygen relief valve on the Centaur second stage of the Atlas V rocket,” NASA said.

During its trip to the International Space Station on June 5, NASA reported that some of the The spacecraft’s thrusters did not function as expectedwhile several leaks were observed in Starliner’s helium system.

Meanwhile, on Kalpana Chawla’s mission, a failure also occurred during launch, when foam falling from the external tank hit the reinforced carbon panels on the underside of the left wing. This ultimately led to a tragedy.

At a time when NASA and Boeing are still working to identify the root cause of Starliner’s problems and fully understand the spacecraft, it would be a risk to carry astronauts aboard the same capsule that suffered anomalies during launch and even before launch.

ISRO chief Somanath, while reacting to Sunita Williams’ mission, had said that the Starliner “showed some anomalies and [it appears to me that] they [NASA] “We don’t want to take any risks… because it has shown some problems in the past, even before launch,” he said.

Starliner will return without crew

NASA and Boeing will undock the uncrewed Starliner spacecraft no earlier than 6:04 p.m. EDT (3:30 a.m.) Friday, Sept. 6, from the International Space Station, subject to weather and operational readiness.

After undocking, Starliner will take about six hours to reach the landing zone at White Sands Spaceport in New Mexico. “The spacecraft will touch down at about 12:03 a.m. Saturday, Sept. 7, descending under parachutes and with airbags inflated to cushion the impact,” NASA said.

Meanwhile, Sunita Williams and Butch Willmore will return on the SpaceX Crew-9 mission in February 2025.