By Adam Mynott BBC correspondent in Delhi

This tragedy will have shocked and appalled many people in India.

Kalpana Chawla was a heroine; the first Indian woman to travel into space.

Six years ago, she was on a Nasa mission into space to study the effects of micro-gravity, before being selected for this shuttle mission.

Kalpana Chawla was born in Karnal, in Haryana, in North India, in 1961.

She went to university in Punjab, before moving to the US to continue her studies in aerospace engineering.

A brilliant scientist, she was also a skilled pilot and Nasa recruited her in the late 1980s.

Star gazing

India was immensely proud of her; the first Indian woman to reach out for the stars, is how she was described in one newspaper article.

It was her face which appeared on the front cover of a national magazine two weeks ago. India has been celebrating its heroes and heroines who have left India to work and live abroad.

In its list of celebrated, talented Indians, her name was put at the top of the list. The magazine described her as a child sleeping in her courtyard in the summers, looking at the spangled skies wishing she had a telescope.

Most people in India will not hear of the accident until they wake up in the morning.

But there will be an enormous sense of grief and loss.