Science & Technology GK Questions with Answers – Page 21

In a boiling water reactor, the design used at Tarapur, ordinary water is allowed to boil inside the reactor vessel itself, so the coolant leaving the core is a mixture of water and steam; the steam is separated at the top and driven straight to the turbine, without the separate…

The CANDU design, from which India's pressurised heavy water reactors descend, burns natural uranium, and natural uranium contains only about seven parts in a thousand of the fissile isotope uranium 235.

The Tarapur Atomic Power Station in Maharashtra was commissioned in 1969 with American assistance and was the first nuclear power station in India as well as in Asia; its first two units are boiling water reactors, a design used nowhere else in the country.

The Prime Minister announced the National Hydrogen Mission in his Independence Day speech from the Red Fort on 15 August 2021, with the aim of making India a hub for producing and exporting green hydrogen.

Dhanush is the ship-launched variant of the Prithvi short-range surface-to-surface ballistic missile, fired from a stabilised platform on a naval vessel, and it can be used against targets on land or at sea.

Mission Shakti was conducted on 27 March 2019, when a DRDO interceptor launched from Dr A. P. J. Abdul Kalam Island destroyed a satellite of India's own in a low earth orbit.

The Integrated Test Range at Chandipur, on the Odisha coast near Balasore, is the main missile testing facility of the DRDO, and many launches are also made from Dr A. P. J. Abdul Kalam Island off the same coast, which was earlier called Wheeler Island.

Nirbhay is a long-range cruise missile that flies below the speed of sound, which is what subsonic means, and it is powered by a small turbofan engine that keeps it flying throughout its journey.

K-15, called Sagarika, is the first of the K series of submarine-launched ballistic missiles, developed for the Arihant class of nuclear powered submarines, and the longer-ranged K-4 follows it in the same family.

Agni-V is a three-stage solid-fuelled missile with a range beyond five thousand kilometres, which places it in the intercontinental ballistic missile class.

Astra is fired from a fighter aircraft at another aircraft that is still beyond the pilot's sight, which is what beyond visual range means, and it uses an active radar seeker in its final phase.

Akash was one of the five missiles of the IGMDP and is meant to destroy aircraft and helicopters at medium range.

Nag is a third generation anti-tank guided missile of the fire and forget kind, which means the operator can leave cover once the missile has locked on to the target.

BrahMos is built by a joint venture of India and Russia, and its name joins the Brahmaputra of India with the Moskva of Russia to mark the partnership.

The five missiles of the IGMDP were Prithvi, Agni, Trishul, Akash and Nag. BrahMos came later and from a different route altogether, as a joint venture between India and Russia, and it is a supersonic cruise missile, while the IGMDP produced ballistic and guided missiles of Indian design.

The Integrated Guided Missile Development Programme, usually written IGMDP, was approved in 1983 and placed under the Defence Research and Development Organisation, with A. P. J. Abdul Kalam as its head.

In a scramjet, short for supersonic combustion ramjet, the air taken in from the atmosphere stays supersonic while the fuel is burnt in it, which is what allows sustained flight at hypersonic speed.

CVRDE, near Chennai, is the DRDO laboratory for armoured fighting vehicles, and the Arjun main battle tank was designed there and is produced at the Heavy Vehicles Factory in the same town.

GTRE is the DRDO laboratory for aero engines, and the Kaveri turbofan was taken up there for the Tejas light combat aircraft.

Trishul was designed as a quick reaction weapon to protect warships and forward army positions from low flying aircraft and from sea skimming missiles, so it needed very fast response over a short distance rather than long reach.