Which of the following is a multi-barrel rocket system developed by DRDO?

The correct answer is B, Rakesh Sharma. An Indian Air Force pilot, Rakesh Sharma flew to the Soviet space station Salyut 7 aboard a Soyuz spacecraft in April 1984 as part of a joint mission and spent about a week in orbit, carrying out experiments in biology and remote sensing. He is remembered for answering the Prime Minister's question about how India looked from space with a line from a well known song.

Option A, Kalpana Chawla, was the first woman of Indian origin in space, flying with NASA, and she died in the Columbia accident of 2003. Option C, Ravish Malhotra, was the backup pilot for the 1984 mission and did not fly. Option D, Sunita Williams, is another astronaut of Indian origin with NASA who has spent long periods on the International Space Station. Only Rakesh Sharma flew as an Indian citizen first.

The correct answer is B, Voyager 1. Launched by NASA in 1977, Voyager 1 flew past Jupiter and Saturn, then continued outward and has since crossed into interstellar space, making it the farthest human-made object from the earth. It carries a golden record with sounds and images of our planet, and it took the picture of the earth known as the pale blue dot.

Option A, Pioneer 10, was an earlier probe to Jupiter and was once the most distant object but has been overtaken and no longer sends signals. Option C, New Horizons, flew past Pluto in 2015 and is far away but much closer than the Voyagers. Option D, Cassini, studied Saturn and its moons and was deliberately sent into the planet at the end of its mission in 2017. Voyager 2, the twin, is the only spacecraft to have visited all four giant planets.

The correct answer is C, China. The Chinese mission Chang'e 4 landed on the far side of the Moon in January 2019, the first spacecraft ever to do so, and released the rover Yutu-2. A landing there is difficult because the far side never faces the earth, so a separate relay satellite was placed in position to carry signals. China later brought lunar samples back to the earth with Chang'e 5.

Option A, the United States, landed the Apollo crews on the near side. Option B, Russia, as the Soviet Union, made the first soft landing of any kind with Luna 9 in 1966, again on the near side. Option D, India, landed near the south pole with Chandrayaan-3 in 2023, which is a different achievement and the most likely confusion in this question. The far side belongs to China.

The correct answer is B, Japan. JAXA stands for the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, formed in 2003 by merging three earlier Japanese space bodies, with its headquarters at Tokyo. It is known for the Hayabusa missions, which brought back samples from asteroids, for the Kibo laboratory module on the International Space Station and for the H series of launch vehicles.

Option A, South Korea, has its own body called KARI, the Korea Aerospace Research Institute. Option C, China, works through the China National Space Administration, founded in 1993 and based at Beijing, which runs the Chang'e lunar missions and the Tiangong station. Option D, Israel, has the Israel Space Agency. Matching the short name to the country is exactly what such questions test, so learn ISRO, NASA, ESA, JAXA, CNSA and KARI together.

The correct answer is A, Paris. The European Space Agency was founded in 1975 by a group of European countries that decided to pool their space work, and its headquarters is in Paris. The agency has separate establishments spread across Europe for technology, astronaut training and mission control, and it works with NASA on projects such as the Hubble and James Webb telescopes and the International Space Station.

Option B, Brussels, is the seat of the European Union and of NATO, not of the space agency, which is a separate body with its own members. Option C, Kourou in French Guiana, is where the agency's Guiana Space Centre launches rockets, chosen for its nearness to the equator. Option D, Darmstadt in Germany, holds the European Space Operations Centre, which controls missions after launch. Only the headquarters is in Paris.