Space technology

Answer: (c) 1 and 2 only

IN-SPACe is the autonomous single-window agency that authorises and promotes private space activity, and Agnikul's Agnibaan SOrTeD (May 2024) was the first flight with a single-piece 3D-printed engine. Skyroot Aerospace is known for its own Vikram launch vehicles; no official record shows it developing liquid fuel for GSLV, which is an ISRO rocket.

• ✓ 1. IN-SPACe acts as an autonomous single-window agency to authorise and promote space activities by government entities and non-government entities.
• ✓ 2. Agnikul's Agnibaan SOrTeD, launched from Sriharikota on 30 May 2024, was the world's first rocket flight with a single-piece 3D-printed engine.
• ✗ 3. Skyroot Aerospace's own work is the Vikram series of launch vehicles; GSLV is ISRO's vehicle, and we found no official statement that Skyroot developed fuel for it.

Remember · IN-SPACe = single-window regulator and promoter for private space. Agnikul: first flight with a single-piece 3D-printed engine (2024). Skyroot: Vikram rockets, India's first private orbital vehicle.

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Answer: (c) Both 1 and 2

Both statements match the Cabinet-approved design of the National Quantum Mission: quantum computers of 50–1000 physical qubits within eight years, and four Thematic Hubs at leading academic and national R&D institutes.

• ✓ 1. The Mission targets intermediate-scale quantum computers with 50–1000 physical qubits in 8 years, on platforms such as superconducting and photonic technology.
• ✓ 2. Four T-Hubs are to be set up in top academic and national R&D institutes: quantum computing, quantum communication, quantum sensing and metrology, and quantum materials and devices.

Remember · NQM (2023, eight years): 50–1000 qubit machines; four T-Hubs (computing, communication, sensing & metrology, materials & devices); run by the Department of Science and Technology.

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Answer: (b) Only two

UPSC's key counts two missions. Axiom-4 took Indian biology experiments to the International Space Station, and Gaganyaan is listed by the Government among its microgravity-experiment opportunities. SpaDeX is a docking technology demonstration, with rendezvous, docking, power transfer and payload operation as its key objectives, so it is not counted; the microgravity payloads on that launch flew on POEM-4, the PSLV's orbital platform.

• ✓ I Axiom-4 carried Indian biology experiments to the International Space Station, for example on how microgravity and space radiation affect edible microalgae.
• ✗ II SpaDeX's key objectives, as the Government describes them, are precision rendezvous and docking, power transfer between the docked craft and payload operation after undocking. The 24 microgravity payloads on the same launch belonged to POEM-4, the PSLV's fourth-stage platform, which is why the key leaves SpaDeX out.
• ✓ III The Government lists microgravity experiments among the research benefits of the Gaganyaan human-spaceflight programme.

Remember · Axiom-4 and Gaganyaan are tied to microgravity experiments; SpaDeX is a satellite-docking demonstration, and the microgravity payloads on its launch were POEM-4's.

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Answer: (d) I and II only

GAGAN is India's satellite-based augmentation system, built by ISRO and the Airports Authority of India. It corrects GPS signals and warns pilots when a signal is unfit for navigation, which is what statements I and II describe. Statement III fails because GAGAN was made for civil aviation but is also used in other sectors, including maritime, road and rail.

• ✓ I GAGAN improves the accuracy of GPS and adds integrity information, that is, an alert when a GPS signal cannot be trusted for navigation.
• ✓ II Precise, dependable positioning across Indian airspace supports better air traffic management; the Government lists this among GAGAN's continuing aims.
• ✗ III The benefit is not limited to aviation. Government material lists maritime navigation, road transport, railways, disaster management, surveying and other sectors as users of GAGAN.

Remember · GAGAN (ISRO with AAI) is India's SBAS: it improves GPS accuracy, adds integrity alerts for aviation, helps air traffic management, and also serves maritime, road and rail.

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Answer: (b) 2 and 3 only

An RTG is not a reactor: nothing is split in a chain reaction. It simply turns the steady heat given off by the natural decay of plutonium-238 into electricity using thermocouples, which is why it powers deep-space probes and rovers such as Voyager, New Horizons, Curiosity and Perseverance. The US made its plutonium-238 at the Savannah River nuclear-materials plant, part of its weapons complex.

• ✗ 1. RTGs have no fission or chain reaction. Heat from the spontaneous radioactive decay of plutonium-238 is converted to power by thermocouples, with no moving parts.
• ✓ 2. They supply electricity and warmth to spacecraft where sunlight is weak or dust blocks solar panels; the current US model, the MMRTG, gives about 110 watts at launch.
• ✓ 3. Plutonium-238 is not weapons-grade plutonium, but the US produced it at its Savannah River plant, a site built to make nuclear-weapons materials, until the late 1980s; it is the standard RTG fuel.

Remember · RTG = heat from natural decay of Pu-238 → electricity via thermocouples (Seebeck effect). No fission. Powers Voyager, Cassini, New Horizons, Curiosity, Perseverance.

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Answer: (d) Statement-I is incorrect, but Statement-II is correct

A star's mass decides how fast it burns. Big, massive stars need very high rates of nuclear fusion in their cores to hold themselves up against their own gravity, so they use up their hydrogen in a few million years, while small dwarf stars burn slowly and can shine for billions or even trillions of years. So the fusion-rate statement is true, and the longer-life statement is the reverse of the truth.

• ✗ Statement-I Massive stars are short-lived: some last only a few million years, whereas low-mass red dwarfs can last trillions of years; the Sun will spend about 10 billion years on the main sequence.
• ✓ Statement-II More massive stars must fuse hydrogen at a much higher rate to generate the outward pressure that balances their stronger gravity, which also makes them hotter and brighter.

Remember · Bigger star → faster fusion → shorter life. Massive stars: millions of years, end as supernovae; red dwarfs: trillions of years. Sun: about 10 billion years on the main sequence.

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Answer: (a) Only one

Only pair 3 is correctly matched. Pairs 1 and 2 have their descriptions swapped: Cepheids are stars whose brightness varies in a regular cycle, and nebulae are giant clouds of gas and dust. Pulsars are indeed neutron stars left when a massive star runs out of fuel and collapses.

• ✗ 1. Cepheids are pulsating variable stars, not clouds. Their regular changes in brightness are used to measure distances to galaxies.
• ✗ 2. A nebula is a very large cloud of gas (and dust), the place where stars form. It is not a star that brightens and dims.
• ✓ 3. A neutron star forms when a massive star runs out of fuel and its core collapses. Pulsars are neutron stars that spin fast and sweep a beam of radiation across space.

Remember · Cepheids are stars that brighten and dim in a regular cycle; nebulae are clouds of gas and dust; pulsars are spinning neutron stars.

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Answer: (d) Japan

Japan has its own satellite navigation system, the Quasi-Zenith Satellite System (QZSS, also called Michibiki). It is a regional system that works alongside GPS; the other three countries operate no navigation constellation of their own.

• ✓ (d) QZSS is Japan's own satellite positioning system, run by the Cabinet Office. The UN's navigation committee (ICG) lists Japan as a provider of a regional system, as it lists India for NavIC.
• ✗ (a) Australia takes part in the ICG only as a country with an active navigation-applications programme. It does not run a navigation constellation of its own.
• ✗ (b) Canada does not run its own navigation satellite system, and it is not listed among the ICG's system providers.
• ✗ (c) Israel does not run its own navigation satellite system, and it is not listed among the ICG's system providers.

Remember · Own navigation systems: USA (GPS), Russia (GLONASS), EU (Galileo), China (BeiDou), India (NavIC), Japan (QZSS). Australia, Canada and Israel have none.

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Answer: (c) A missile is put into a stable orbit around the Earth and deorbits over a target on the Earth.

A Fractional Orbital Bombardment System (FOBS) sends a warhead into a low Earth orbit and brings it down over the target before it completes a full circuit — hence 'fractional'. Because it can approach from any direction, even over the South Pole, it is hard for early-warning radars to track. The Soviet Union built one in the 1960s, and it returned to the news in 2021 after reports of a Chinese test.

• ✓ (c) FOBS places a weapon in orbit around the Earth and then deorbits it onto a target, instead of following the arcing path of an intercontinental ballistic missile.
• ✗ (a) Deflecting or destroying an incoming asteroid is planetary defence (for example NASA's DART mission), not a bombardment system aimed at Earth.
• ✗ (b) Orbiting a planet several times before landing describes a planetary landing mission, unrelated to weapons.

Remember · FOBS: nuclear warhead put into low partial Earth orbit, deorbited onto target — evades radars facing the usual ICBM routes; Soviet system banned under SALT II (1979).

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Answer: (c) 1, 3, 4, 6 and 7 only

Items 1, 3, 4, 6 and 7 are genuine effects of a strong solar storm: it disturbs GPS, damages power grids, brightens auroras, drags on satellites and blacks out high-frequency radio near the poles. Tsunamis (item 2) come from undersea earthquakes and forest fires (item 5) are not an effect of space weather, so they are ruled out.

• ✓ 1. Solar-flare disturbances of the ionosphere range from errors of a few metres to complete loss of the GPS signal.
• ✗ 2. A tsunami needs an earthquake tremor centred below the ocean; solar storms do not generate them, at the equator or anywhere else.
• ✓ 3. Geomagnetic storms drive large ground currents (GICs) that can damage high-voltage transformers and have caused widespread power outages.
• ✓ 4. The same storms create the aurora borealis and aurora australis, and a strong one can push the northern lights as far south as Florida.
• ✗ 5. None of the recognised effects of space weather (radio, GPS, satellites, power lines, pipelines) is a ground-level fire hazard.
• ✓ 6. A strong storm heats and expands the upper atmosphere, raising drag on low-Earth-orbit satellites, which can slow them or make them lose altitude.
• ✓ 7. Near the poles, Earth's magnetic field funnels charged particles down. Severe space weather can cut radio contact with aircraft on transpolar routes, so they may need to reroute.

Remember · Solar storms hit technology: GPS, HF radio, satellites, power grids; and give auroras. They do not cause tsunamis or forest fires.

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Answer: (d) Speed of light is always same.

A light-year is the distance light covers in one year, and it works as a fixed yardstick because the speed of light in vacuum is constant. Space distances are so large that a unit with a fixed, known value is far more convenient than kilometres.

• ✓ (d) Light travels at about 3 × 10^8 m/s in vacuum, always the same value. So the distance it covers in one year is a fixed length, roughly 9 trillion km.
• ✗ (a) Distances between stars and galaxies do change, because they move; the light-year is chosen for another reason.
• ✗ (c) Light does not always go straight: it bends when it passes from one medium to another, so straight-line travel is not the basis of the unit.
• ✗ (b) The strength of gravity of a star has no role in defining a unit of length.

Remember · A light-year is a distance (about 9.46 trillion km), not a time. It is usable because the speed of light in vacuum is constant.

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Answer: (d) Evolved LISA

The description fits eLISA (Evolved Laser Interferometer Space Antenna), a proposed space observatory for gravitational waves. Three spacecraft would fly in a triangle with arms about one million kilometres long and measure tiny changes in their separation using laser links.

• ✗ (a) Voyager-2 is a single probe travelling through the outer Solar System; it does not fly in a formation of three.
• ✗ (b) New Horizons is also a single probe, sent to Pluto and beyond, not a triangle of laser-linked spacecraft.
• ✗ (c) LISA Pathfinder was a technology demonstrator: one spacecraft carrying two test masses just 38 cm apart, to prove the techniques needed for a future space gravitational-wave observatory.
• ✓ (d) eLISA was designed as three spacecraft, one 'mother' and two 'daughters', linked by laser interferometry, with arms shorter than the original LISA, at 1 million km.
• • Since then The gravitational-wave mission now planned by ESA with NASA is called LISA and uses larger arms: three spacecraft with each side 2.5 million km long (NASA).

Remember · eLISA = three spacecraft, laser-linked triangle with 1 million km arms, to detect gravitational waves. LISA Pathfinder was only the one-spacecraft test.

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Answer: (d) 1, 2 and 3

All three can be measured or estimated from satellite data: leaf greenness and chlorophyll from visible and near-infrared reflectance, land surface temperature from thermal infrared, and paddy methane by combining satellite-derived rice area and temperature with models.

• ✓ 1. Chlorophyll strongly absorbs visible light and leaves reflect near-infrared, so satellite vegetation indices (such as MODIS NDVI and EVI) track canopy greenness, which depends on leaf area, chlorophyll and canopy structure.
• ✓ 2. Methane from rice paddies has been estimated with a model driven by satellite-mapped rice area, land surface temperature and evapotranspiration, for example over China's Sanjiang Plain.
• ✓ 3. Land surface temperature is retrieved from thermal infrared measurements, for example the MODIS daily product at 1 km pixels.

Remember · Remote sensing gives vegetation greenness and chlorophyll (NDVI), land surface temperature (thermal infrared), and, with models, methane from rice fields.

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Answer: (b) 'Gravitational waves' were detected.

The merger of two black holes was significant because it produced gravitational waves, ripples in space-time that scientists detected directly for the first time on 14 September 2015 using the LIGO detectors. The waves, predicted by Einstein a hundred years earlier, travelled for 1.3 billion years before reaching Earth.

• ✓ (b) The Nobel Prize in Physics 2017 press release says the first observed gravitational waves came from a collision between two black holes. An Indian team was part of the group that announced the discovery in 2016.
• ✗ (c) NASA states that black holes do not provide shortcuts between different points in space, so nothing about travel through wormholes was confirmed.
• ✗ (a) The Higgs boson is a particle searched for in particle-physics experiments; the black-hole merger observation was about gravitational waves, not that particle.
• ✗ (d) The observation is remembered for detecting gravitational waves, not for explaining the 'singularity' inside a black hole.

Remember · First direct detection of gravitational waves (LIGO, 14 September 2015): two black holes merging about 1.3 billion light-years away; Nobel Prize in Physics 2017.

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Answer: (d) 1, 2 and 3

GPS is used for far more than finding locations: its satellite signals carry very precise atomic-clock time, and that timing is used to synchronise mobile networks, banking and financial systems, and power grids. So all three areas are correct.

• ✓ 1. Wireless and communications networks use GPS time to synchronise their operations and to use limited radio spectrum efficiently.
• ✓ 2. Financial networks use GPS time to synchronise systems and to put traceable time tags on financial transactions and billing.
• ✓ 3. Power grids depend on GPS timing for precise synchronisation across the network.

Remember · GPS gives position and precise time. Precise time is used to synchronise communications, financial networks and power grids.

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Answer: (a) 1 only

Only statement 1 is correct: IRNSS (now called NavIC) has seven satellites, three in geostationary orbit and four in inclined geosynchronous orbit. It is a regional system that reaches about 1,500 km beyond India's boundary, not 5,500 sq. km, and India has announced no global-coverage system for 2019.

• ✓ 1. ISRO describes a seven-satellite constellation: three satellites in geostationary orbit and four in inclined geosynchronous orbit.
• ✗ 2. The primary service area is India plus the region up to 1,500 km from its boundary. The statement gives 5,500 sq. km, which is a wrong figure and the wrong kind of unit for a distance.
• ✗ 3. IRNSS is 'an independent regional navigation satellite system', meant for India and its neighbourhood. ISRO's own description names no plan for global coverage by 2019.

Remember · IRNSS/NavIC: 7 satellites (3 geostationary + 4 inclined geosynchronous); primary service area is India plus 1,500 km beyond its boundary; regional, not global.

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Answer: (a) 1 only

Only statement 1 is correct. PSLV is ISRO's workhorse for earth-observation (remote-sensing) satellites in low, sun-synchronous polar orbits, while GSLV's main job is communication satellites for geosynchronous transfer orbit. GSLV Mk III has three stages, not four.

• ✓ 1. Government of India's science portal says PSLV is designed mainly to deliver earth-observation or remote-sensing satellites, and VSSC says GSLV places INSAT and GSAT communication satellites into geosynchronous transfer orbit.
• ✗ 2. A satellite looks fixed in the sky only if it is in geostationary orbit, about 35,786 km up. PSLV mainly puts satellites in polar orbits at 600-900 km, which sweep across the sky.
• ✗ 3. GSLV Mk III (LVM3) is a three-stage vehicle: two solid strap-on motors (S200), a liquid core stage (L110) and a cryogenic upper stage (C25). It has no fourth stage.
• • Since then ISRO now names this rocket LVM3 (GSLV Mk III); the configuration described on ISRO's LVM3 page is the same three-stage design.

Remember · PSLV: earth-observation satellites into polar sun-synchronous orbits. GSLV: communication satellites into geostationary transfer orbit. GSLV Mk III (LVM3): three stages.

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Answer: (a) Observation and understanding of the Universe

All four terms belong to physics and cosmology, the study of how the Universe is built and how it began. An event horizon and a singularity are parts of a black hole, and the Standard Model describes matter and its forces.

• ✓ (a) The event horizon is a black hole's boundary, inside which nothing can escape, and the singularity is the point at its centre where matter is crushed to infinite density. The Standard Model explains how the building blocks of matter interact. String theory is a physicists' theory of fundamental forces and matter. All four help us understand the Universe.
• ✗ (b) Eclipses are explained by the positions of the Sun, Earth and Moon and need none of these terms.
• ✗ (c) Launching satellites concerns rockets and orbits, not black holes or particle physics.
• ✗ (d) The origin of living organisms belongs to biology and evolution. NCERT ties 'singularity' to the Big Bang, the origin of the Universe.

Remember · Event horizon and singularity are black-hole terms; the Standard Model is particle physics; string theory is theoretical physics. All concern the Universe.

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Answer: (b) To detect gravitational waves

eLISA was planned as a space-based observatory to detect gravitational waves, the ripples in space-time caused by events such as merging black holes. It works as a laser interferometer in space, so its purpose is gravitational-wave detection.

• ✓ (b) The name gives it away: a Laser Interferometer Space Antenna is a laser-based gravitational-wave detector in space, the space counterpart of ground detectors such as LIGO.
• ✗ (a) Neutrinos are detected by large underground or under-ice detectors, not by a laser interferometer in space.
• ✗ (c) A missile-defence test has nothing to do with this science mission.
• ✗ (d) Solar flares are studied by solar observatories and space-weather missions, not by an interferometer built for gravitational waves.
• • Since then The eLISA concept is now the European Space Agency's LISA mission, described as the first space-based observatory for gravitational waves, with launch planned for 2035.

Remember · eLISA/LISA = laser interferometer in space to detect gravitational waves. Ground-based cousin: LIGO, which India is joining.

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Answer: (a) Electric plane tested by NASA

Greased Lightning (GL-10) is an experimental battery-powered aircraft developed by NASA's Langley Research Center. It has ten electric motors and can take off vertically like a helicopter and then fly efficiently like an aeroplane.

• ✓ (a) NASA describes GL-10 as a battery-powered plane with 10 engines, eight electric motors on the wings and two on the tail, that takes off like a helicopter and cruises like an aircraft.
• ✗ (b) GL-10 is a NASA project. It is a small remotely piloted aircraft, not a solar-powered two-seater from Japan.
• ✗ (c) GL-10 is an aircraft, not a space observatory.
• ✗ (d) GL-10 is an aircraft, not a rocket, and it has nothing to do with ISRO.

Remember · GL-10 (Greased Lightning): NASA's ten-motor electric VTOL aircraft prototype from Langley Research Center.

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Answer: (d) Neither 1 nor 2

Neither statement is correct. Astrosat weighed about 1,513 kg at lift-off and was put into a 650 km orbit, not 2,000 kg and 1,650 km; and India is not the only country beyond the USA and Russia to have launched a space observatory, since Europe's ESA, for one, had already done so.

• ✗ 1. Other countries and agencies have launched space observatories. For example, ESA's Integral gamma-ray observatory was launched on 17 October 2002, long before Astrosat (September 2015).
• ✗ 2. ISRO gives Astrosat's lift-off mass as about 1,513 kg and its orbit as 650 km, inclined at 6 degrees to the equator, launched by PSLV-C30.

Remember · Astrosat: India's multi-wavelength space observatory (UV to X-ray), launched by PSLV-C30 on 28 September 2015; about 1,513 kg, 650 km orbit at 6 degrees inclination.

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Answer: (c) 1 and 3 only

Statements 1 and 3 are correct, and statement 2 is wrong. Mangalyaan is ISRO's Mars Orbiter Mission, and India reached Mars orbit on its very first try, but India was the fourth space agency to do so, not the second country after the USA.

• ✓ 1. ISRO itself says Mangalyaan and Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) are the same mission, India's first interplanetary mission, to Mars.
• ✗ 2. ISRO became the fourth space agency to put a spacecraft in Mars orbit, after NASA of the USA, Roscosmos of Russia and the European Space Agency, so India was not the second.
• ✓ 3. The spacecraft entered Martian orbit on 24 September 2014 and, in the words of the Government of India, India became the first country to reach Mars on its maiden attempt.

Remember · Mangalyaan = Mars Orbiter Mission (PSLV-C25, 5 November 2013; Mars orbit 24 September 2014): fourth space agency at Mars, first country to succeed at the first attempt.

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