Prattusa Mallik
Her family called her ‘Monto’, but when she started school, the principal asked her to choose a formal name. She chose ‘Kalpana’, which means ‘imagination’. Perhaps this early act of self–determination foreshadowed her life of pursuing her dreams.
From her childhood in Karnal, she was captivated by airplanes. She and her brother would often visit the local flying club, and this early exposure fueled her lifelong passion for flying.
She broke barriers by pursuing aeronautical engineering at Punjab Engineering College, where she was one of the very few female students in her field.
Beyond her astronaut training, Kalpana was also a skilled pilot. She held commercial pilot licenses for single and multi-engine airplanes, as well as a flight instructor rating for airplanes and gliders.
It’s very interesting to observe how Kalpana’s legacy lives on. There are many things named in her honour. For example, India's MetSat–1 satellite was renamed ‘Kalpana-1’. NASA has also named seven hills on mars after the Columbia space shuttle crew, of which she was a part.