Science & Technology Quiz: Lunar and Mars Missions: Chandrayaan and Mangalyaan

The correct answer is B, 2008. Chandrayaan 1 was launched on 22 October 2008 from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre at Sriharikota and reached lunar orbit within a fortnight. It carried eleven payloads, five Indian and six foreign, and its data led to the confirmation of water molecules on the lunar surface. Contact was lost in August 2009.

Option A, 2005, is too early; India had no lunar mission in that year. Option C, 2013, is the year the Mars Orbiter Mission was launched, on 5 November, which makes it the strongest distractor in this set. Option D, 2019, is the year of Chandrayaan 2, launched on 22 July. Learn the four dates as a chain: 2008 for the first Moon mission, 2013 for Mars, 2019 for the second Moon mission and 2023 for the third.

The correct answer is A, PSLV C11. The Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle in its extended configuration carried Chandrayaan 1 on 22 October 2008. The same family of rockets, in the C25 flight, later carried the Mars Orbiter Mission in 2013, which shows how much the Indian space programme achieved with a medium lift vehicle.

Option B, the GSLV Mark Three, carried Chandrayaan 2 in 2019 and is the heavy lift rocket of the Indian programme. Option C, the SLV 3, was India's first satellite launch vehicle, which put Rohini into orbit in 1980 under the project leadership of A. P. J. Abdul Kalam, and it was far too small for a lunar mission. Option D, LVM3 M4, is the flight that carried Chandrayaan 3 in 2023; LVM3 is simply the renamed GSLV Mark Three.

The correct answer is B, Moon Mineralogy Mapper. This imaging spectrometer, supplied by the United States space agency and flown on the Indian orbiter, measured how sunlight reflected from the lunar surface and found the absorption signature of water molecules and hydroxyl, especially towards the poles. The finding was announced in 2009 and remains the best known scientific result of the Indian space programme.

Option A, the Moon Impact Probe, was also carried by Chandrayaan 1 and struck the surface on 14 November 2008, but its role was to test descent technology and plant the flag, and its own instruments gave only supporting evidence. Option C, the Orbiter High Resolution Camera, belongs to Chandrayaan 2 and came eleven years later. Option D, the Lyman Alpha Photometer, was a payload of the Mars Orbiter Mission, not of a lunar mission.

The correct answer is B, GSLV Mark Three. Chandrayaan 2 lifted off on 22 July 2019 on the heaviest Indian rocket then flying, the Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle Mark Three, which has since been renamed LVM3. The extra lifting power was needed because the mission carried three craft together: an orbiter, the lander Vikram and the rover Pragyan.

Option A, PSLV C25, carried the Mars Orbiter Mission in 2013. Option C, the ASLV, was the Augmented Satellite Launch Vehicle of the nineteen eighties, a small experimental rocket long retired. Option D, PSLV C11, carried Chandrayaan 1 in 2008. The pattern worth remembering is that the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle carried the first Moon mission and the Mars mission, while the heavy rocket carried the two later Moon missions with landers.

The correct answer is B, Vikram and Pragyan. The lander is named Vikram after Vikram Sarabhai, the physicist who founded the Indian space programme and is called its father. The six wheeled rover is named Pragyan, a Sanskrit word meaning wisdom. Both names were used for Chandrayaan 2 in 2019 and again for Chandrayaan 3 in 2023.

Option A names Aryabhata, India's first satellite of 1975, and Bhaskara, an early Earth observation satellite. Option C names Rohini, the satellite put in orbit by the SLV 3 in 1980, and Apple, an experimental communication satellite of 1981. Option D mixes Aditya, the solar observatory launched in 2023, with a word for Mars. All are real Indian space names, which is exactly why they are placed here.

The correct answer is B, 23 August 2023. The Vikram lander of Chandrayaan 3 touched down safely in the high latitude region near the lunar south pole on that evening, and the rover Pragyan rolled out soon afterwards. The landing point was named Shiv Shakti Point, and 23 August is now observed every year as National Space Day.

Option A, 14 July 2023, is the launch date of Chandrayaan 3, and mixing the launch with the landing is the commonest error on this topic. Option C, 2 September 2023, is the launch date of Aditya L1, the solar mission. Option D, 7 September 2019, is the date on which the Chandrayaan 2 lander lost contact during its descent and the earlier landing attempt failed, four years before this success.

The correct answer is C, fourth. The Soviet Union was the first to place a craft gently on the lunar surface, the United States followed, and China became the third. India joined them on 23 August 2023 with the landing of the Vikram lander of Chandrayaan 3. India also became the first country of any to land in the south polar region, which is the separate record often asked in the same paper.

Option A, second, and option B, third, understate the position and belong to the United States and China. Option D, fifth, overstates it. Keep the two claims apart in memory: fourth country to soft land anywhere on the Moon, and first country to land near the lunar south pole. A question may test either, and the wording will tell you which.

The correct answer is B, Shiv Shakti Point. The spot where the Vikram lander of Chandrayaan 3 touched down on 23 August 2023, in the high latitude region near the lunar south pole, was given this name shortly after the landing. The day of the landing was also declared National Space Day.

Option A, Tiranga Point, is the name given to the place where the Chandrayaan 2 lander came down in 2019, so it is a real lunar name and the sharpest distractor here. Option C, Jawahar Point, is the name of the place where the Moon Impact Probe of Chandrayaan 1 struck the surface on 14 November 2008. Option D, Sarabhai Point, is not a site name, although a lunar crater is named after Vikram Sarabhai. Three of these four names are genuine, which is what makes the question worth a careful reading.

The correct answer is D, a fresh lunar orbiter. Chandrayaan 3 was deliberately built without one, because the orbiter of Chandrayaan 2 was still healthy in lunar orbit and could relay the lander's signals to the Earth. Leaving out a new orbiter saved weight and cost and let the mission concentrate on the landing that had failed in 2019.

Option A is wrong because the mission did carry a propulsion module, which took the lander to lunar orbit and then remained there with a single instrument observing the Earth. Option B is wrong because the lander Vikram was the heart of the mission and made the soft landing on 23 August 2023. Option C is wrong because the six wheeled rover Pragyan rolled out of the lander and carried two spectrometers that confirmed sulphur and several metals in the lunar soil.

The correct answer is B, PSLV C25. The Mars Orbiter Mission lifted off on 5 November 2013 on this flight of the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle. Because the rocket could not throw the spacecraft towards Mars directly, the craft was placed in an elliptical orbit around the Earth and raised in stages by repeated burns of its own engine before departing for Mars, a method that saved a great deal of fuel and cost.

Option A, the GSLV Mark Two, was not used for this mission. Option C, LVM3 M4, is the flight that carried Chandrayaan 3 in 2023. Option D, PSLV C57, carried Aditya L1, the solar observatory, on 2 September 2023, and is placed here because it belongs to the same rocket family. The spacecraft entered Mars orbit on 24 September 2014.

The correct answer is B, 24 September 2014. After a journey of about ten months the spacecraft fired its engine and was captured by the gravity of Mars on that day. With it India became the first country in the world to reach Mars orbit at its very first attempt, the first Asian country to reach the planet, and the Indian Space Research Organisation the fourth space agency to do so.

Option A, 5 November 2013, is the launch date of the same mission, and confusing launch with arrival is the standard mistake here. Option C, 22 July 2019, is the launch date of Chandrayaan 2. Option D, 14 November 2008, is the day the Moon Impact Probe of Chandrayaan 1 struck the lunar surface. Each of the four dates is real, so the question rewards a candidate who has tied every date to its own event.

The correct answer is D, Moon Mineralogy Mapper. That instrument belonged to Chandrayaan 1, the lunar mission of 2008, and it was the one whose data confirmed water molecules on the Moon. It has nothing to do with Mars, and its name alone should give it away in a list of Martian instruments.

Option A, the Mars Colour Camera, was a real payload and sent back the full disc images of the planet that became the best known pictures of the mission. Option B, the Methane Sensor for Mars, looked for methane in the Martian atmosphere, a gas that can point to biological or geological activity. Option C, the Lyman Alpha Photometer, measured hydrogen and deuterium in the upper atmosphere to study how Mars lost its water. The remaining payloads were the Thermal Infrared Imaging Spectrometer and the Mars Exospheric Neutral Composition Analyser, making five in all.