Chandrayaan-1 and the Mars Orbiter Mission were both launched by which vehicle?

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 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 C, four. The PSLV is unusual in alternating propellants between its stages: the first and third stages burn solid propellant and the second and fourth burn liquid propellant. The liquid fourth stage can be restarted and throttled, which is what lets the vehicle drop satellites into more than one orbit on the same flight.

Option B, three, is the number of stages in GSLV Mk II and in LVM3, and is the answer candidates give when they mix the vehicles up. Option A, two, matches no Indian orbital vehicle. Option D, five, is closer to the Augmented Satellite Launch Vehicle, which is counted as a five-stage rocket because of its strap-on boosters. Note that the six strap-on motors on the larger PSLV versions are not counted as a separate stage, since they burn alongside the first stage.

The correct answer is C, the third stage. The GSLV has three stages: a solid core first stage with four liquid strap-on motors, a liquid second stage using a Vikas engine, and a cryogenic upper stage that burns liquid hydrogen with liquid oxygen. A cryogenic stage is placed on top because its very high efficiency matters most once the vehicle is above the thick air and needs the last, largest gain in speed.

Option A is wrong because a cryogenic engine cannot give the heavy thrust needed at lift-off, which is why solid motors do that work. Option B is the liquid Vikas stage, which uses propellants that are liquids at ordinary temperatures and is therefore not cryogenic. Option D does not exist on this vehicle, as the GSLV has only three stages; a fourth stage belongs to the PSLV, and that fourth stage is liquid, not cryogenic.

The correct answer is B, the Satish Dhawan Space Centre SHAR at Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh. It is India's only orbital launch site, on the east coast, so vehicles can fly out eastwards over the Bay of Bengal and take the free gain from the earth's rotation while the spent stages fall harmlessly into the sea. It was earlier called the SHAR Centre and was renamed after Satish Dhawan.

Option A, the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre, designs and develops launch vehicles but does not launch them, and the nearby Thumba station is used only for small sounding rockets. Option C, the U R Rao Satellite Centre, builds and tests satellites. Option D, the Space Applications Centre, develops the payloads and instruments the satellites carry and works on applications of the data. Learn the four centres as a set of jobs: rocket, launch, satellite, payload.