Question

The Satish Dhawan space center is located in___
A. Madhya Pradesh
B. Andhra Pradesh
C. Himachal Pradesh
D. None of the above

Answer 1

Hint: Satish Dhawan Space Centre or Sriharikota Range is a centre for rocket launching under the management of ISRO. In 2002, the name of Sriharikota Range was changed to Satish Dhawan Space Centre to commemorate ISRO's former chairman Satish Dhawan.

Complete Answer:
The Satish Dhawan Space Centre is situated in Sriharikota. Sriharikota Island was selected in 1969 for a satellite launching station. The center started functioning in 1971 when an RH-125 sounding rocket was launched. The first tried launch of an orbital satellite, Rohini 1A onboard a Satellite Launch Vehicle, took place on 10 August 1979, but due to a failure in thrust vectoring of the rocket's second stage, the satellite's orbit was delayed to 19 August 1979. In 2002, the name of SHAR was changed to 'Satish Dhawan Space Centre SHAR' (SDSC), to commemorate Satish Dhawan, the former Chairman of ISRO. The SHAR facility now has two launch pads, with the second one built in 2005. The second launch pad was inaugurated in 2005 and is a universal launch pad since then , accommodating all of the launch vehicles used by ISRO. The two launch pads will make the launching of multiple rockets every year possible, which was not possible earlier. On Oct 22 in 2008, India's lunar orbiter Chandrayaan-1 was launched from the centre. In November 2013, India's first Mars orbiter Mangalyaan was also launched from the centre on which successfully entered into Mars orbit on 24 September 2014. SDSC's current director is Arumugam Rajarajan.
Therefore, the correct answer is Option ‘B: Andhra Pradesh’.

Note: Madhya Pradesh too has a space centre of ISRO. The Master Control Facility (MCF) for geostationary satellite station keeping is located at Bhopal.