Her role in the flight caused some controversy due to the failed deployment of the Shuttle-Pointed Autonomous Research Tool for Astronomy ("Spartan") module.

She was one of the seven crew members who died in the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster when the spacecraft disintegrated during its reentry into the Earth's atmosphere on February 1, 2003.

[13] Because she could not take further specialized aerospace engineering courses in India, Chawla traveled to the United States to continue her education in 1982, again facing opposition from her father.

[9] She earned her MSc from the University of Texas at Arlington (UTA) in 1984 with her thesis Optimization of cross flow fan housing for airplane wing installation.

She subsequently studied how to use multiple computers to solve fluid flow problems, testing these methods by calculating powered lift effects.

Fellow astronaut Kevin R. Kregel also attempted to grapple the payload by matching its spin with the shuttle's, but this movement was ultimately aborted.

As part of this mission, Chawla studied how to mix liquids evenly to make specific metal combinations that could be used in future computer chips.

[27] Some members of the press criticized Chawla for her handling of the Spartan payload, but Kregel refused to assign blame in an interview with the Orlando Sentinel, stating that: We'd be very foolish if we tried to second-guess or tried to figure out what the actual turn of events were without having all the information... We're six folks up here, we know what happened on our side, we'll get together with the folks on the ground and we'll put the whole story together and make sure it never happens again.

Sure, we're always a bit disappointed if we don't get the full mission accomplished, but we did retrieve the satellite, and so the important thing is we're bringing Spartan back down to Earth and it'll get to fly another day.

[23] After the mission, in January 1998, Chawla was given a technical assignment advising shuttle engineers on different aspects of payload development and the astronaut experience.

[31] STS-107 was delayed 13 times over two years for a variety of reasons, including orbiter maintenance and the discovery of cracks in the shuttle engine flow liners on July 19, 2002.

Chawla worked on the Red Team alongside fellow astronauts Ilan Ramon, Laurel Clark, and Rick Husband.

[35] She performed a variety of experiments while in orbit, researching astroculture as well as the properties of combustion, crystal growth, granular materials, and mist.

[37] As the flight engineer, Chawla was tasked, alongside mission specialist Clark, with assessing the shuttle's system before reentry on February 1.

[39] In 2003, a report by the Columbia Accident Investigation Board found that a piece of insulating foam broke off of the shuttle's external tank during liftoff, striking the left wing of the orbiter.

A prize consisting of INR ₹25,000, a medal, and a certificate was also created to reward the top students in the aeronautical engineering department.

[49] Steve Morse of the band Deep Purple released the song "Contact Lost" in 2003 in memory of the Columbia disaster.

[61] Then in 2020, she became the focus of the second season of the National Geographic documentary series Mega Icons alongside musician A. R. Rahman, actress Deepika Padukone, and industrialist Ratan Tata.

[62] The fourteenth contracted Northrop Grumman Cygnus spacecraft mission, which was launched in October 2020 to deliver supplies to the International Space Station was named the S.S. Kalpana Chawla in her honor.