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SSC CGL Space & ISRO

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This page covers SSC CGL Space & ISRO with complete concept notes, 31 graded practice MCQs, key points and exam-specific tips. Free to study.

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Concept Notes

Space & ISRO— Rules & Concept

1.Core Concept

Read this first — the foundation of the topic
ORBITS — Know the difference

• LEO (Low Earth Orbit): 160–2000 km altitude. Used for remote sensing. • GEO (Geostationary Orbit): 35,786 km altitude. Satellite stays fixed over one point. Used for TV, weather, communication. • SSO (Sun-Synchronous Orbit): Used by PSLV for remote sensing satellites. 3

SATELLITE SERIES

• IRS (Indian Remote Sensing) — Earth observation. • INSAT (Indian National Satellite) — Communication and weather. • IRNSS / NavIC — India's own GPS system

Full form

Navigation with Indian Constellation. Has 7 satellites. • GSAT — Geostationary communication satellites. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

2.Formula Block

Memorise — at least one formula appears in every paper
Shortcut 1 — Geostationary Orbit Height = 35,786 km (memorise as '35-7-86' → 3+5=8, 7, 8-6=2... just remember 35,786 km directly)
Shortcut 2 — PSLV = Polar orbit = Remote Sensing. GSLV = Geostationary orbit = Communication. Remember: P for Polar, G for Geostationary.
Shortcut 3 — NavIC satellite count trick: 'IRNSS has 7 satellites' → 7 letters in 'NavIC-7' (just link the number 7 to NavIC).

(Orbit Shortcuts)

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MAJOR MISSIONS — HIGH FREQUENCY IN EXAMS

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• Aryabhata (1975) — India's FIRST satellite. Launched by Soviet Union's rocket.

• Rohini (1980) — First satellite launched by India's OWN rocket (SLV-3).

• Chandrayaan-1 (2008) — Discovered water molecules on Moon.

• Chandrayaan-2 (2019) — Orbiter still active. Lander Vikram crash-landed.

• Chandrayaan-3 (2023) — SUCCESS. Lander: Vikram, Rover: Pragyan. Landed near Moon's South Pole on 23 August 2023. India became the FIRST country to land near Moon's South Pole.

• Mangalyaan / MOM (2014) — Mars Orbiter Mission. India's first Mars mission. India became the FIRST country to reach Mars orbit in its very first attempt.

• Aditya-L1 (2023) — India's first solar mission. Placed at L1 Lagrange Point between Earth and Sun.

• Gaganyaan — India's first human spaceflight mission (upcoming). Three astronauts will go to space.

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3.Exam Patterns

What examiners ask — read before attempting PYQs

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ SSC CGL asks questions in these patterns: • 'Which was India's first satellite?' → Aryabhata • 'PSLV is used for which type of orbit?' → Polar / Sun-Synchronous • 'Chandrayaan-3 lander name?' → Vikram • 'Mangalyaan was launched in which year?' → 2013 (launched) / 2014 (reached Mars) • 'NavIC has how many satellites?' → 7 • 'Aditya-L1 is placed at which point?' → L1 Lagrange Point ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

4.Worked Example

Solve this step-by-step before moving on
1
Step 1

Mangalyaan went to Mars. Eliminate B.

2
Step 2

Rohini was a small satellite in 1980. Not related to Moon. Eliminate D.

3
Step 3

Chandrayaan-2 went to Moon in 2019. But water was discovered earlier.

4
Step 4

Chandrayaan-1 (2008) carried the Moon Impact Probe and discovered water molecules. Answer: (C) Chandrayaan-1 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ WORKED EXAMPLE 2 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Q: India became the first country to successfully land a spacecraft near the Moon's South Pole. Which mission achieved this? Options: (A) Chandrayaan-1 (B) Chandrayaan-2 (C) Chandrayaan-3 (D) Aditya-L1

1
Step 1

Aditya-L1 is a solar mission, not Moon. Eliminate D.

2
Step 2

Chandrayaan-1 orbited Moon. No landing. Eliminate A.

3
Step 3

Chandrayaan-2 lander crash-landed. Mission was not fully successful. Eliminate B.

4
Step 4

Chandrayaan-3 successfully landed on 23 August 2023 near South Pole. Answer: (C) Chandrayaan-3 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ #1 MOST COMMON TRAP / MISTAKE ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ TRAP: Students confuse 'Mangalyaan launched year' vs 'Mangalyaan reached Mars year.' Mangalyaan was LAUNCHED on 5 November 2013. Mangalyaan REACHED Mars on 24 September 2014. Exam questions ask both. Read carefully — 'launched' = 2013, 'entered Mars orbit' = 2014. Second trap: Aryabhata was India's first satellite BUT it was launched by the Soviet Union, NOT by India's rocket. India's first SELF-launched satellite was Rohini in 1980 using SLV-3.

Key Points to Remember

  • ISRO was established in 1969. HQ in Bengaluru. Works under Department of Space under PM of India.
  • Vikram Sarabhai is the Father of Indian Space Programme and first chairman of ISRO.
  • Aryabhata (1975) = India's first satellite. Launched by Soviet Union rocket, NOT India's own rocket.
  • Rohini (1980) = First satellite launched by India's own rocket SLV-3. Remember: Rohini = own Rocket.
  • SHORTCUT — P for Polar: PSLV launches into Polar/Sun-Synchronous orbit for Remote Sensing satellites.
  • SHORTCUT — G for Geostationary: GSLV launches communication satellites into GEO orbit at 35,786 km altitude.
  • Chandrayaan-1 (2008) discovered water on Moon. Chandrayaan-3 (2023) = first landing near Moon's South Pole.
  • Mangalyaan LAUNCHED = 5 Nov 2013. Reached Mars = 24 Sep 2014. India was FIRST to reach Mars in first attempt.
  • SHORTCUT — NavIC = 7 satellites. India's own GPS system. Full form: Navigation with Indian Constellation.
  • Aditya-L1 = India's first solar mission (2023). Positioned at L1 Lagrange Point between Earth and Sun.

Exam-Specific Tips

  • ISRO was founded on 15 August 1969. Its headquarters is in Bengaluru, Karnataka.
  • India's first satellite Aryabhata was launched on 19 April 1975 by a Soviet Kosmos-3M rocket.
  • Chandrayaan-3 lander is named Vikram and rover is named Pragyan. It landed on 23 August 2023.
  • Mangalyaan (Mars Orbiter Mission) was launched on 5 November 2013 and entered Mars orbit on 24 September 2014.
  • India is the FIRST country to land near Moon's South Pole (Chandrayaan-3) and FIRST to reach Mars in its first attempt (Mangalyaan).
  • Geostationary orbit altitude = 35,786 km above Earth's surface. Satellites in GEO appear stationary from Earth.
  • NavIC (IRNSS) has a constellation of 7 satellites providing navigation coverage over India and surrounding region up to 1500 km.
  • GSLV Mk III was renamed LVM3 (Launch Vehicle Mark 3) and is India's heaviest and most powerful operational rocket.
Practice MCQs

Space & ISRO — Practice Questions

31graded MCQs · easy to hard · full solution & trap analysis · showing 20 of 31

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Practice 1easy

Which of the following is India's indigenous satellite launch vehicle used to place satellites into Geostationary Orbit (GEO)?

Practice 2easy

Which of the following is India's primary satellite launch vehicle used for launching heavy satellites into Geostationary Transfer Orbit (GTO)?

Practice 3easy

In which year did ISRO successfully test the Reusable Launch Vehicle - Technology Demonstrator (RLV-TD), marking a step towards reusable space technology?

Practice 4easy

In which year was the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) established?

Practice 5easy

Which Indian space agency is responsible for India's space programme and satellite launches?

Practice 6easy

What is the name of India's lunar exploration mission that successfully landed on the Moon's south polar region in August 2023?

Practice 7easy

What is the primary objective of India's Mangalyaan (Mars Orbiter Mission)?

Practice 8easy

What is the primary objective of India's Mangalyaan (Mars Orbiter Mission) launched in 2013?

Practice 9easy

ISRO stands for which of the following?

Practice 10easy

Which Indian space agency successfully deployed the Chandrayaan-3 mission, achieving a soft landing on the lunar south pole in August 2023?

Practice 11medium

In which year did ISRO successfully launch the Mangalyaan (Mars Orbiter Mission), making India the first nation to reach Mars on its maiden attempt?

Practice 12medium

What is the primary objective of ISRO's Aditya-L1 mission launched in September 2023?

Practice 13medium

What is the primary function of the Indian Remote Sensing (IRS) satellite series operated by ISRO?

Practice 14medium

In which year did ISRO successfully launch the Mangalyaan (Mars Orbiter Mission)?

Practice 15medium

Which Indian space mission successfully soft-landed on the Moon's south polar region in August 2023?

Practice 16medium

What is the name of India's first space station project, which ISRO is currently developing with an expected operational timeline beginning in 2028?

Practice 17medium

Which of the following statements about ISRO's Gaganyaan program is correct?

Practice 18medium

Which ISRO mission successfully demonstrated the soft landing of a spacecraft near the South Pole of the Moon in 2023?

Practice 19medium

Which Indian space mission successfully demonstrated India's capability to land a spacecraft on the lunar south pole region?

Practice 20medium

Which of the following is the primary objective of ISRO's Aditya-L1 mission launched in September 2023?

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60-Second Revision — Space & ISRO

  • Remember: Aryabhata = first Indian satellite (1975, Soviet rocket). Rohini = first satellite on Indian rocket SLV-3 (1980).
  • Formula/Trick: P = Polar orbit = PSLV = Remote Sensing. G = Geostationary = GSLV = Communication satellites.
  • Remember: Mangalyaan LAUNCHED in 2013, REACHED Mars in 2014. Exam asks both — read question carefully.
  • Remember: Chandrayaan-1 = water on Moon (2008). Chandrayaan-3 = South Pole landing (23 Aug 2023), Vikram lander + Pragyan rover.
  • Trap: Do NOT say India launched Aryabhata — Soviet Union launched it. India only launched Rohini on its own rocket.
  • Remember: NavIC = 7 satellites = India's GPS. Aditya-L1 = Sun mission = placed at L1 Lagrange Point (2023).
  • Formula: Geostationary orbit = 35,786 km altitude. Any satellite fixed over one spot on Earth is in GEO orbit.
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