SSC CGL 2025 Tier-I · 17 September 2025, Shift 2 · General Awareness · Question 11 of 99

We transcribed this text from the pictures on a candidate's response sheet for this shift; the answer is the key SSC colour-marked on that sheet. Solution last reviewed 13 September 2026.

Where this paper and its answers come from

SSC does not publish CGL question papers or a public answer key. From 2025 the candidate response sheet prints every question and option as a picture, so the text here is transcribed from those pictures for this shift and checked against them independently; where the layout carries meaning, the picture is shown as well. Each answer is the key SSC colour-marked on that sheet. SSC released a tentative key for challenge and later its final one, both only to candidates behind a login, and the sheet does not say which of the two it carries. The solutions are written by UnlockIAS.

Gaganyaan is planned to orbit Earth at approximately what altitude?

(a)100 km
(b)400 km
(c)1000 km
(d)36,000 km

Answer

Why

Correct — B. ISRO states the Gaganyaan objective directly: to launch a crew of three to an orbit of 400 km for a three-day mission, and bring them back safely by landing in Indian sea waters.

400 km → option (b).

Why the others are wrong

(a)
100 km — 100 km is about where space is conventionally said to begin, the Kármán line. ISRO's figure for Gaganyaan's orbit is 400 km.
(c)
1000 km — 1,000 km is not ISRO's figure. The Gaganyaan objective names an orbit of 400 km.
(d)
36,000 km — 36,000 km is roughly the height of geostationary orbit, used by communication satellites, far above Gaganyaan's planned orbit.

Concept

Gaganyaan is ISRO's human spaceflight project. Its planned 400 km orbit is a low Earth orbit.

ISRO names LVM3, its heavy-lift launcher, as the launch vehicle. Its systems are reconfigured to meet human-rating requirements, and the human-rated version is called HLVM3.

The three wrong figures are real heights with other meanings: 100 km for the conventional edge of space, and about 36,000 km for geostationary orbit.

Key facts

Gaganyaan aims to put a crew of three in a 400 km orbit for a three-day mission (ISRO).
The crew is to return by landing in Indian sea waters.
The launch vehicle is LVM3, human-rated as HLVM3.
Geostationary orbit lies at about 36,000 km.

Study next

Low Earth, geosynchronous and geostationary orbitsGaganyaan's crew module and crew escape systemIndia's space missions: Chandrayaan, Mangalyaan and Aditya-L1

Common traps

Choosing 36,000 km because it is a familiar satellite figure. That is geostationary orbit, far above Gaganyaan's planned orbit.
Taking 100 km, the edge of space, for an orbit height. ISRO's Gaganyaan figure is 400 km.

Here a space mission is tested through one number from its stated objective. Gaganyaan also appears at 16 Sep 2025, 09:00, GA Q.13, which keys HLVM3 as Human LVM3.

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