For her contribution to spacefilght, an American cargo spacecraft has been named after NASA astronaut Kalpana Chawla. She was the first Indian woman to step into the space.

The announcement was made by an American Global Aerospace and Defence Technology company, Northrop Grumman stating that its upcoming Cygnus capsule will be identified as 'S.S. Kalpana Chawla'. The company has made the decision to name the capsule after the astronaut's name to commemorate the mission specialist who died along with her six crewmates in 2003.

The company tweeted, "Today we honour Kalpana Chawla, who made history @NASA as the first female astronaut of Indian descent. Her contributions to human spaceflight have had a lasting impact".

The company also mentioned on its website that it has been a tradition to name each Cygnus after a person who has played a crucial part in human spaceflight. They also mentioned that it was an honour to name NG-14 Cygnus after former astronaut.

The capsule or S S Kalpana Chawla is scheduled to launch on 29 September on the NG-14 expedition overhead the rocket Northrop Grumman Antares from MARS (Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport) at Wallops Flight Facility of NASA, Virginia. Through this mission, cargo of about 3629 kg is expected to be delivered to the space station.

Kalpana Chawla, born in Haryana, India, completed her graduation in aeronautical engineering before moving to the US for further studies. She completed her postgraduate in aerospace engineering from the University of Texas and Ph.D. from the University of Colorado. She was a trained pilot and certified flight instructor.

Chawla joined NASA in 1988 at the Ames Research Centre as a computational fluid dynamics researcher. She applied for the astronaut corps of NASA in 1991 and got selected in 1994. In 1996, she was assigned as the mission specialist on STS-87. The space shuttle was Columbia. In 2001, Chawla along with her whole crew lost her life during the disintegration of Columbia while reentering the atmosphere of the earth.