Chandrayaan 1, India's first mission to the Moon, was launched in which year?

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.