Science & Technology Mixed Quiz: Set 2

The correct answer is A, the SSLV, or Small Satellite Launch Vehicle. It has three solid stages and a small liquid velocity trimming module, carries up to about 500 kg to a 500 km low earth orbit, and is designed to be assembled and launched by a small team within days so that a customer with one satellite need not wait for a shared ride.

Option B, PSLV-CA, is the core-alone version of the PSLV flown without strap-on motors; it is a lighter configuration of a large rocket, not a small vehicle in its own right. Option C, ASLV, was an experimental vehicle of the 1980s and 1990s with a capacity of about 150 kg and is no longer in service, so it cannot be the answer to a question about a current vehicle. Option D, LVM3, is at the opposite end of the family as India's heaviest operational rocket.

The correct answer is D, 1.6 W/kg. The Specific Absorption Rate measures how much radio energy from a handset the body takes in, in watts per kilogram of tissue. From 1 September 2012 the Department of Telecommunications made 1.6 W/kg, averaged over one gram of human tissue, the limit for every new mobile handset design sold in India. Before that India followed the older figure of 2.0 W/kg averaged over ten grams. The rules also require the SAR value to be printed on the handset and its box, and a buyer can check it by dialling a code given by the maker. India's limit matches the standard used in the United States. Option A is wrong because 1.8 W/kg is not a prescribed limit anywhere. Option B is wrong because 2.1 W/kg is not a SAR standard. Option C is wrong because 2.2 W/kg is only a distractor. Exam tip: India's SAR limit is 1.6 W/kg over 1 gram of tissue, in force from 1 September 2012.

The correct answer is B, the Airports Authority of India. GAGAN stands for GPS Aided GEO Augmented Navigation and was developed by ISRO together with the Airports Authority so that civil aircraft in Indian airspace get position information accurate and reliable enough for approach and landing. It does not have navigation satellites of its own; it broadcasts corrections that improve the signals already available.

Option A, the Indian Air Force, uses satellite navigation but is not the partner in this civil aviation project. Option C, the India Meteorological Department, works on weather and uses satellite data of a different kind. Option D, the Directorate General of Shipping, deals with merchant shipping, and marine users are served by NavIC rather than by GAGAN. The distinction worth carrying into the hall is that NavIC provides signals while GAGAN only corrects them.

The correct answer is C, A. P. J. Abdul Kalam. The Integrated Guided Missile Development Programme was approved in 1983 and run by the DRDO under Dr A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, which is why he is called the Missile Man of India. The programme built five missiles, easy to remember as P-A-T-N-A: Prithvi, a surface-to-surface missile; Agni, a ballistic missile; Trishul, a short-range surface-to-air missile; Nag, an anti-tank missile; and Akash, a medium-range surface-to-air missile. It was formally closed in 2008 once its main goals were met. Kalam also guided the Pokhran-II tests of 1998 and served as President of India from 2002 to 2007. Option A is wrong because Har Gobind Khorana shared the Nobel Prize in 1968 for work on the genetic code. Option B is wrong because Vikram Sarabhai is called the father of India's space programme. Option D is wrong because Homi J. Bhabha founded India's nuclear programme. Exam tip: Kalam - missiles; Sarabhai - space; Bhabha - atomic energy.

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 B, Aryabhata in 1975. It was launched on 19 April 1975 by a Soviet launch vehicle, since India had no vehicle of its own at the time, and it carried experiments in X-ray astronomy, solar physics and the ionosphere. It was named after the ancient Indian mathematician and astronomer.

Option A, Rohini of 1980, holds a different record: it was the first satellite placed in orbit by an Indian launch vehicle, SLV-3, on 18 July 1980, and candidates who mix the two records choose it. Option C, Bhaskara-1 of 1979, was the first experimental earth observation satellite. Option D, APPLE of 1981, was the first experimental communication satellite and went up on the European Ariane rocket. The clean chain to memorise is 1975 first satellite, 1979 first earth observation, 1980 first Indian launch, 1981 first communication satellite.

The correct answer is C, the human-rated LVM3. Gaganyaan will fly on the LVM3, the heaviest Indian launch vehicle, modified and certified for carrying human beings and then written as HLVM3. It is a three stage vehicle with two solid strap-on boosters, a liquid core stage and a cryogenic upper stage, and human rating adds wider structural margins, redundant systems and extra checks.

Option A, the PSLV-XL, is the workhorse used for remote sensing satellites and for Chandrayaan-1 and Mangalyaan, but it cannot lift a crewed spacecraft. Option B, the GSLV Mk II, carries communication satellites of about two tonnes to geosynchronous transfer orbit and is too small for this payload. Option D, the SSLV, is the small satellite launch vehicle meant for payloads of a few hundred kilograms. The LVM3 was earlier called the GSLV Mk III, which is why both names appear in question papers.

The correct answer is C, LVM3. Chandrayaan-3 weighed close to 3,900 kg at lift-off, far beyond the reach of any lighter Indian rocket, so it flew on LVM3, the vehicle earlier named GSLV Mk III. The same vehicle had launched Chandrayaan-2 in July 2019.

Option A, PSLV-XL, carried Chandrayaan-1 in 2008 and the Mars Orbiter Mission in 2013, both far lighter spacecraft, and is the distractor most candidates fall for. Option B, GSLV Mk II, lifts about 2,250 kg to a transfer orbit, which is not enough for a lunar lander of this mass. Option D, SSLV, is built for satellites of a few hundred kilograms and could not carry a fraction of the payload. Remember the split: the two Chandrayaan missions with landers went on LVM3, while the orbiter-only Chandrayaan-1 and the Mars mission went on PSLV.

The correct answer is C, Pinaka. Pinaka is the multi-barrel rocket launcher built for the Indian Army by DRDO's Armament Research and Development Establishment, Pune, and named after the bow of Lord Shiva. One launcher fires twelve rockets in about forty-four seconds, so a battery can saturate a large patch of ground in a single salvo. The first version reaches about forty kilometres and later versions go considerably further. Pinaka was used in the Kargil conflict of 1999 and is now exported as well. Option A is wrong because Dhanush is a naval, ship-launched version of the Prithvi ballistic missile, and the name is also used for a towed artillery gun. Option B is wrong because Trishul was a short-range surface-to-air missile of the Integrated Guided Missile Development Programme. Option D is wrong because Prithvi is a surface-to-surface ballistic missile, a guided weapon rather than a rocket system. Exam tip: the IGMDP gave Prithvi, Agni, Trishul, Akash and Nag; Pinaka is a rocket launcher outside that list.

The correct answer is C, Chandipur, Odisha. Prithvi II is test-fired from the Integrated Test Range at Chandipur on the Odisha coast, the DRDO range used for missile and rocket trials. Prithvi II is a surface-to-surface short-range ballistic missile of the Indian Air Force, developed under the Integrated Guided Missile Development Programme that Dr A.P.J. Abdul Kalam led. It runs on liquid propellant, has a range of about 350 km and can carry a warhead of 500 to 1,000 kg. Option A is wrong because Rutland Island in the Andamans has no missile test range. Option B is wrong because Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh is ISRO's launch centre for satellites, not a missile range. Option D is wrong because Machilipatnam is a coastal town with no such facility. Exam tip: the IGMDP missiles are Prithvi, Agni, Trishul, Akash and Nag; missiles are tested at Chandipur, while satellites go up from Sriharikota.

The correct answer is D, Ability. Bias in an artificial intelligence system is traced to three sources, the data it learns from, the algorithm that learns, and the people who build and use it; ability is not one of them, because the skill of a model is a measure of how well it performs, not a place where unfairness enters. Data bias appears when the training set leaves out or under-represents a group, as with a face recognition system trained mostly on one kind of face. Algorithmic bias comes from the choices made in designing a model, such as the features it is allowed to use. Human bias enters through labelling, sampling and the assumptions of the team. Options A, B and C are therefore wrong answers to this question because each one is a genuine source of bias. Exam tip: remember data, algorithm and people as the three sources of AI bias.

The correct answer is A, Navigation with Indian Constellation. The name was given in 2016 to the Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System, IRNSS, when the seventh satellite of the constellation was placed in orbit, and the word navik also carries the sense of a sailor or navigator, which is why it was chosen.

Options B, C and D are invented expansions of the kind an examiner adds to see whether the candidate has read the term or only heard it. The two facts that go with the full form are that NavIC is the Indian system built so that the country does not depend on another nation's signals, and that it is a regional system covering India and a belt of about 1,500 km beyond its boundary rather than the whole earth. Keep IRNSS and NavIC as the old and new names of one system.

The correct answer is C, the European Ariane rocket. The full name of the satellite, Ariane Passenger Payload Experiment, contains the answer, since it flew as a passenger on an Ariane launch in 1981 to test the building of a geostationary communication satellite in India. India then had no vehicle able to reach a geostationary transfer orbit.

Option A, SLV-3, could place only about 40 kg in a low earth orbit and could never have carried APPLE to the height a communication satellite needs. Option B, a Soviet vehicle, had launched Aryabhata in 1975 and Bhaskara in 1979, so it is a reasonable guess but the wrong one here. Option D, the Space Shuttle, carried the later INSAT-1B in 1983, which is a separate fact often asked alongside. The bullock cart photograph of APPLE at the test site is from this programme.

The correct answer is B, SLV-3 carrying Rohini RS-1. On 18 July 1980 the four-stage, all-solid SLV-3 placed the small Rohini RS-1 satellite in a low earth orbit from Sriharikota, and India became the sixth nation able to launch its own satellite. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam was the project director of the vehicle.

Option A names the Augmented Satellite Launch Vehicle, which came later and carried the SROSS series; its first two flights failed. Option C is wrong on both counts, because the PSLV first flew in 1993 and IRS-1A of 1988 was launched by a Soviet rocket. Option D pairs the right vehicle with the wrong satellite: Aryabhata, India's first satellite, was launched in 1975 by a Soviet launcher from Kapustin Yar, five years before India had a vehicle of its own. Keep 1975 for the first satellite and 1980 for the first Indian launch.

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, seven. The system was designed as a constellation of seven satellites, three of them in geostationary orbit and four in geosynchronous orbits inclined to the equatorial plane, a small number being enough because the service area is regional and not global. IRNSS-1G, launched in April 2016, completed the seven.

Option A, four, is the number of inclined satellites alone and is the trap for a candidate who remembers the split but not the total. Option D, twenty-four, is roughly the size of a global constellation such as GPS, which needs satellites spread over the whole earth. Option C, nine, matches no system. Remember the split as three plus four, and remember that the second-generation NVS satellites are replacing the first-generation ones as they age.

The correct answer is A, Rakesh Sharma. Rakesh Sharma, then a Squadron Leader in the Indian Air Force, became the first Indian in space on 3 April 1984. He flew on the Soviet spacecraft Soyuz T-11 to the Salyut 7 space station under the Interkosmos programme and spent about eight days in orbit, and he was awarded the Ashoka Chakra.

Option B, Kalpana Chawla, was the first woman of Indian origin in space, but she flew for NASA in 1997, thirteen years later. Option C, Ravish Malhotra, was the backup cosmonaut for the same 1984 mission and trained alongside Rakesh Sharma but did not fly, which makes him the strongest distractor. Option D, Sunita Williams, is an American astronaut of Indian origin who flew long duration missions to the International Space Station. Only Rakesh Sharma flew as an Indian citizen representing India.

The correct answer is B, John McCarthy. The American computer scientist John McCarthy is called the father of artificial intelligence because he coined the term itself in his proposal for the Dartmouth summer research project of 1956, the meeting at which the field was born. He also created LISP in 1958, the language in which most early artificial intelligence work was written, argued for time sharing on computers, and received the Turing Award in 1971. Option A is wrong because Alan Turing is honoured as the father of computer science and of the Turing test, which asks whether a machine can be told apart from a person in conversation, but he did not name the subject. Option C is wrong because Blaise Pascal built the Pascaline, a mechanical adding machine, in the seventeenth century. Option D is wrong because Dartmouth is the college where the 1956 conference was held, not a person. Exam tip: McCarthy named artificial intelligence in 1956 and wrote LISP.

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, Soyuz T-11. Rakesh Sharma flew on Soyuz T-11, launched from Baikonur on 2 April 1984, and docked with the Soviet space station Salyut 7. The flight was part of the Interkosmos programme, under which the Soviet Union carried cosmonauts of friendly countries, and Sharma carried out experiments in biomedicine and remote sensing.

Option A, Vostok 1, carried Yuri Gagarin, the first human in space, in April 1961. Option C, Apollo 11, was the American mission that landed Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on the Moon in July 1969. Option D, Shenzhou-5, carried Yang Liwei in October 2003 and made China the third country to launch a human being into orbit on its own. Keeping these four spacecraft and their firsts apart is the point of the question.