Science and Technology News Questions and Answers

Answer: B

Vyommitra was developed by ISRO.

Vyommitra is a half-humanoid robot developed by the Indian Space Research Organisation for the Gaganyaan human spaceflight programme. It is meant to fly on the uncrewed test missions, monitoring the module's systems and simulating human functions before astronauts are carried. ISRO unveiled it in January 2020.

C-DAC builds supercomputers, TIFR is a research institute in fundamental science, and DRDO is the defence research organisation; none developed Vyommitra.

Answer: C

PUMA stands for Programmable Universal Machine for Assembly.

The PUMA was an industrial robot arm developed by Victor Scheinman at Unimation, with support from General Motors, in the late 1970s. Its name described its purpose: a programmable, general-purpose (universal) machine for assembly work. It became widely used in industry and research labs.

The other options alter one or more words of the name ('Used', 'Utility', 'Programmed', 'to Assemble').

Answer: D

The launch vehicle was PSLV - C37.

On 15 February 2017, ISRO's PSLV-C37 launched 104 satellites from Sriharikota in a single mission: the Cartosat-2 series satellite and 103 co-passenger satellites, most of them small foreign satellites. It was then a world record for satellites launched on one rocket.

INSAT-3DR is a weather satellite, not a launch vehicle. GSLV-F12 (2023) carried a navigation satellite, and PSLV-C55 (2023) launched Singapore's TeLEOS-2.

Answer: A

India's Mars mission was launched in 2013.

The Mars Orbiter Mission (Mangalyaan) was launched by ISRO on PSLV-C25 on 5 November 2013 and entered orbit around Mars on 24 September 2014, making India the first country to reach Mars orbit on its first attempt.

2014 is the year it reached Mars, which is not among the options; 2012, 2015 and 2016 are not linked with the launch.

The mission was launched from Sriharikota and travelled for about ten months before reaching Mars.

Answer: D

ISRO stands for the Indian Space Research Organisation.

ISRO was formed on 15 August 1969, succeeding the Indian National Committee for Space Research set up under Vikram Sarabhai. It works under the Department of Space and has its headquarters in Bengaluru.

'International', 'Indian Society' and 'Iranian' are invented expansions: ISRO is India's national space agency, not an international body, not a society, and not Iranian (Iran's agency is a separate organisation).

Answer: B

ChatGPT was developed by OpenAI.

OpenAI, an artificial-intelligence company based in San Francisco, released ChatGPT in November 2022. It is a chatbot built on OpenAI's GPT family of large language models and fine-tuned to hold conversations.

Microsoft is a major investor in and partner of OpenAI, which is why it is a tempting distractor, but it did not develop ChatGPT. Google developed its own chatbots, such as Bard (later Gemini), and Apple was not involved.

Answer: A

Covaxin was developed by Bharat Biotech.

Covaxin is India's indigenous inactivated-virus COVID-19 vaccine, developed by Bharat Biotech of Hyderabad in collaboration with the Indian Council of Medical Research and its National Institute of Virology, Pune.

Cipla and Ranbaxy are Indian pharmaceutical companies and Novartis is a Swiss one; none of them developed Covaxin.

Answer: A

The agency was ISRO.

On 15 February 2017, the Indian Space Research Organisation's PSLV-C37 launched 104 satellites in a single mission from Sriharikota, a world record at the time. Most were small nano-satellites for foreign customers, along with India's Cartosat-2 series satellite.

NASA, the Russian space agency and China's space agency did not carry out this launch; the record was broken only later by a commercial rideshare mission.

Answer: A

Sputnik V is a Coronavirus Vaccine.

Sputnik V is the COVID-19 vaccine developed by Russia's Gamaleya Research Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology, registered in Russia in August 2020. It uses two different adenovirus vectors for its two doses.

It is named after the first Sputnik satellite, but it is not a satellite of any kind, geostationary or geosynchronous. It is not a hantavirus vaccine either.

Answer: A

Sputnik V is a coronavirus vaccine.

Sputnik V is the COVID-19 vaccine developed by Russia's Gamaleya National Research Centre for Epidemiology and Microbiology. Registered in August 2020, it was the first COVID-19 vaccine registered by any country, and it was named after Sputnik, the first artificial satellite.

The name is the trap: it is not a geostationary or geosynchronous satellite. It is also not a vaccine against hantavirus.