Chronologically arrange the following Indian-origin astronauts on the basis of their flying into space starting with the first: 1. Sunita Williams 2. Rakesh Sharma 3. Sirisha Bandla 4. Kalpana Chawla Select the correct answer using the code given below:
- (a)4-3-2-1
- (b)2-4-1-3
- (c)2-1-4-3
- (d)1-4-3-2
Correct — B, 2-4-1-3. Taking the four in the order they first left the ground: Rakesh Sharma flew on 3 April 1984 aboard Soyuz T-11 to the Salyut 7 station, spending seven days and about twenty-two hours in orbit as the first Indian in space. Kalpana Chawla followed in 1997 as a mission specialist on Space Shuttle flight STS-87, the first woman of Indian origin to fly. Sunita Williams launched on 9 December 2006 aboard Space Shuttle Discovery on STS-116, joining the Expedition 14 crew on the International Space Station. Sirisha Bandla was the most recent of the four, flying on 11 July 2021 on Virgin Galactic's Unity 22 suborbital flight to about ninety kilometres. So the sequence runs Rakesh Sharma, Kalpana Chawla, Sunita Williams, Sirisha Bandla — statement 2, then 4, then 1, then 3.
- (a)4-3-2-1 — Starts with Kalpana Chawla and places Rakesh Sharma third. Sharma flew in 1984, thirteen years before Chawla, and no ordering that does not open with him can be right.
- (c)2-1-4-3 — Gets the first and last right but swaps the middle pair, putting Sunita Williams before Kalpana Chawla. Chawla's first flight was in 1997 and Williams's in December 2006.
- (d)1-4-3-2 — Puts Rakesh Sharma last, which reverses the whole sequence. He was the first Indian in space and by a wide margin the earliest of the four.
Only one of the four flew as an Indian citizen on an Indian-designated mission. Rakesh Sharma, an Indian Air Force pilot, went up under the Soviet Interkosmos programme in 1984. Kalpana Chawla and Sunita Williams were American astronauts of Indian origin flying with NASA, and Sirisha Bandla was an aeronautical engineer flying on a commercial suborbital vehicle. The question calls all four Indian-origin astronauts, which keeps that distinction out of the way, but it is worth holding on to.
Sequencing questions are answered by anchoring, not by recall of four dates. Fix the two ends first — Rakesh Sharma in 1984 is the earliest by a long way, and Sirisha Bandla's flight in July 2021 was only months before this paper was set. That alone eliminates every option except (b) and (c), and the two of those differ only in the middle pair. Then note that Kalpana Chawla's first flight was in the 1990s and Sunita Williams's in the 2000s, and the answer follows. Since this paper was written the list has grown: Gopichand Thotakura flew suborbitally in May 2024, and Shubhanshu Shukla reached the International Space Station on Axiom Mission 4 in June 2025.
- Rakesh Sharma flew on 3 April 1984 aboard Soyuz T-11 to Salyut 7, spending about seven days and twenty-two hours in space.
- Kalpana Chawla flew as a mission specialist on Space Shuttle flight STS-87 in 1997; she was born in Karnal, Haryana.
- Sunita Williams launched on 9 December 2006 on STS-116 aboard Discovery and joined Expedition 14 on the International Space Station.
- Sirisha Bandla flew on 11 July 2021 on Virgin Galactic's Unity 22, reaching about 89.9 kilometres.
- Shubhanshu Shukla became the first Indian to reach the International Space Station on Axiom Mission 4, launched 25 June 2025.
- Assuming the best-known name flew first; Kalpana Chawla is more familiar to many candidates than Rakesh Sharma, but she flew thirteen years later.
- Treating a suborbital hop as equivalent to an orbital mission; Sirisha Bandla's flight was suborbital.
- Forgetting that Sunita Williams flew more than once, and dating her by a later mission.
As a chronological ordering item, or as a match between astronauts and their missions and vehicles.
Which of the following statements are true about the Indian-born woman astronaut Kalpana Chawla? I. She was born in Karnal. II. She flew on board the shuttle flight STS-87. III. She was trained at the Kennedy Space Centre. IV. She did a space-walk to retrieve the Spartan Satellite. Select the correct answer using the codes given below:
- (a) I and II
- (b) II and III
- (c) I, II and III
- (d) I, II and IV
Answer(c) I, II and III
The same astronaut list, tested on one member of it. That item confirms two of the anchors used here — Kalpana Chawla was born in Karnal and flew on STS-87 — and it corrects a common overstatement, since the Spartan satellite was retrieved by another crew member and not by her.
- practice — not a real PYQ
Rakesh Sharma travelled to space in 1984 aboard which spacecraft?
- (a)Soyuz T-11
- (b)Space Shuttle Columbia
- (c)Vostok 6
- (d)Apollo-Soyuz
Answer(a) Soyuz T-11 — he flew to the Salyut 7 station under the Soviet Interkosmos programme, spending about eight days in space.
- practice — not a real PYQ
Sirisha Bandla's flight of July 2021 differed from the flights of Kalpana Chawla and Sunita Williams in that it was
- (a)a lunar mission
- (b)a suborbital flight on a commercial vehicle
- (c)a flight to the Salyut station
- (d)an uncrewed test flight
Answer(b) a suborbital flight on a commercial vehicle — Virgin Galactic's Unity 22 reached about ninety kilometres and returned without entering orbit.