Science, Technology, Space and Defence in India

ISRO and Indian Space Exploration

60 practice questions, each with the answer and an explanation.

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All 60 questions

  1. Who is often regarded as the 'Father of the Indian space program'?
  2. In which year was ISRO formed, replacing INCOSPAR?
  3. From which place near Thiruvananthapuram was India's first rocket, a two-stage Nike Apache, launched on 21 November 1963?
  4. What was the name of India's first satellite, launched on 19 April 1975 from Kapustin Yar on a Kosmos-3M launch vehicle?
  5. Who was the project director of the SLV-3, a project that began in 1972 under Vikram Sarabhai?
  6. What is the name of ISRO's primary spaceport, located on the island of Sriharikota in Tirupati district of Andhra Pradesh?
  7. Which Indian launch vehicle has four stages, using solid and liquid propulsion systems alternately?
  8. Which mission, launched on 22 October 2008 on a PSLV-XL rocket, was India's first lunar orbiter?
  9. On what date did the Vikram lander of Chandrayaan-3 touch down near the lunar south pole?
  10. What name was announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the landing site of Chandrayaan-3 on the Moon?
  11. What is the name of the six-wheeled, 26 kg rover of the Chandrayaan-3 mission?
  12. Which Indian space mission, launched on 5 November 2013 on a PSLV-C25 rocket, entered Martian orbit on 24 September 2014 and made India the first Asian nation to reach Martian orbit?
  13. Around which point in the Sun-Earth system was India's solar observatory Aditya-L1 placed in a halo orbit on 6 January 2024?
  14. What is the operational name of India's regional navigation satellite system, formerly IRNSS, designed as a seven-satellite constellation?
  15. Which ISRO launch vehicle, previously referred to as the GSLV Mk III, has launched Chandrayaan-2 and Chandrayaan-3?
  16. What is the name of the Indian crewed orbital spacecraft designed to carry three people to low Earth orbit as part of the Indian Human Spaceflight Programme?
  17. What is the name of the half-humanoid robot first unveiled on 22 January 2020 for ISRO's Gaganyaan programme?
  18. Who became the first Indian to travel into outer space, aboard Soyuz T-11 on 3 April 1984?
  19. Which liquid-fuel rocket engine, named after Vikram Sarabhai and based on a licensed version of the Viking engine, powers the second stage of the PSLV and the core stage of the LVM3?
  20. In which city is the headquarters of the Indian Space Research Organisation?
  21. Which ISRO centre in Ahmedabad has developed communication and meteorological payloads for INSAT satellites and optical and microwave payloads for IRS satellites?
  22. Which company, established on 6 March 2019 and headquartered in Bengaluru, is ISRO's commercial arm?
  23. Which single-window autonomous agency under the Department of Space was established in 2020 for private space activities?
  24. Which was India's first dedicated multi-wavelength space telescope, launched on 28 September 2015 aboard PSLV-C30?
  25. In which city is the headquarters of ISRO's National Remote Sensing Centre (NRSC) located?
  26. Where is the Indian Deep Space Network, with 18 m and 32 m antennas, located, 60 km from Bengaluru?
  27. In which two places are ISRO's Master Control Facilities located?
  28. Which joint NASA-ISRO radar satellite uses a 12 m deployable mesh antenna and operates in both L- and S-band?
  29. How many satellites did ISRO launch on a single rocket, PSLV-C37, on 15 February 2017?
  30. ISRO's new SSLV launch complex at Kulasekarapattinam is being developed in which district of Tamil Nadu?
  31. What was the name of India's first three-axis stabilised experimental geostationary communication satellite, launched by an Ariane rocket from Kourou, French Guiana on 19 June 1981?
  32. Which system, tested in the Pad Abort Test on 5 July 2018 and in TV-D1 in October 2023, is meant to pull Gaganyaan astronauts to safety in an emergency?
  33. What was the name of the 1975-76 experiment in which NASA's ATS-6 satellite broadcast educational television programmes to about 2,400 Indian villages?
  34. Which private company became the first in India to launch a suborbital rocket, Vikram-S, on 18 November 2022?
  35. Which propellants does the CE-20 cryogenic engine, the upper-stage engine of the LVM3, burn?
  36. In which city is the Indian Institute of Space Science and Technology (IIST), described as Asia's first space university, located?
  37. What was the code name of the anti-satellite test conducted by DRDO on 27 March 2019, in which an interceptor struck a test satellite in low Earth orbit at about 283 km altitude?
  38. Which mission, launched on 1 January 2024 aboard PSLV-C58, carries the POLIX X-ray polarimeter?
  39. What is the name of the winged reusable launch vehicle technology demonstrator that ISRO tested in landing experiments at the Chitradurga Aeronautical Test Range?
  40. Who was the ISRO chairman during the Chandrayaan-3 mission, having taken over in January 2022?
  41. What problem was Project NETRA, publicly announced in 2019, set up to help counter?
  42. Which proposed Indian space station is expected to have its first module launched in 2028, with the remaining modules by 2035?
  43. By which year does ISRO aim to establish and fully operationalize the Bharatiya Antariksh Station?
  44. What kind of propellant do the three stages of the Small Satellite Launch Vehicle use?
  45. What is the name of ISRO's web-based GIS tool, released in beta on 12 August 2009?
  46. Which ISRO centre at Mahendragiri in Tirunelveli district tests, assembles and integrates propulsion systems and stages?
  47. Which mission placed the IRS-P2 satellite in an 820 km Sun-synchronous orbit on 15 October 1994?
  48. Which payload on the Vikram lander of Chandrayaan-3 was designed to measure the thermal conductivity and temperature of the lunar surface?
  49. What is the function of the APXS and LIBS payloads on the Pragyan rover of Chandrayaan-3?
  50. Which satellite series began with INSAT-1A, launched on 10 April 1982?
  51. In which city was ISRO's Laboratory for Electro-Optics Systems (LEOS) established in 1993?
  52. What is Shukrayaan, the ISRO mission approved by the Indian government in September 2024, meant to study?
  53. What is the name for a rocket propellant whose components spontaneously ignite upon contact with one another?
  54. Which type of orbit is a nearly polar orbit in which a satellite passes over any given point of the planet's surface at the same local mean solar time?
  55. Which Indian physicist founded the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research in June 1945 and co-authored with Walter Heitler a 1937 paper on the theory of cosmic showers?
  56. Which launch vehicle can deliver a 500 kg payload to low Earth orbit and made its SSLV-D2 flight on 10 February 2023?
  57. Which cartographic satellite, with a resolution of 25 cm, was launched on PSLV-C47 on 27 November 2019?
  58. Which Indian astronaut was announced in August 2024 as a pilot on Axiom Mission 4 to the International Space Station?
  59. What does ISTRAC provide for ISRO's satellite and launch vehicle missions?
  60. Which planned joint ISRO and JAXA mission will use a JAXA H3 rocket to send an ISRO lander and a JAXA rover to the Moon's south pole region?

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