Space technology

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.

Question and answer: UPSC's official GS Paper I (2016, Series A) — paper ↗ · answer key ↗. Explanation: Minimalist IAS, checked 30 Sept 2026 (how we verify). Permalink · Report an error

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.

Question and answer: UPSC's official GS Paper I (2016, Series A) — paper ↗ · answer key ↗. Explanation: Minimalist IAS, checked 30 Sept 2026 (how we verify). Permalink · Report an error

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.

Question and answer: UPSC's official GS Paper I (2016, Series A) — paper ↗ · answer key ↗. Explanation: Minimalist IAS, checked 30 Sept 2026 (how we verify). Permalink · Report an error