Artemis II takes four astronauts around the Moon
10 April 2026
NASA's Artemis II lifted off on the Space Launch System from Kennedy Space Center on 1 April 2026 and splashed down in the Pacific off San Diego on 10 April. The Orion spacecraft flew a free-return path around the far side of the Moon without landing or entering lunar orbit, the first crewed flight to the Moon's vicinity since Apollo 17 in 1972. The crew was Reid Wiseman (commander), Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Canada's Jeremy Hansen, the first non-American to fly to the Moon.
Background. Artemis I was uncrewed (2022). Later Artemis missions aim to land astronauts near the lunar south pole, where water ice is thought to exist; India's Chandrayaan-3 landed near the south pole in August 2023. India signed the US-led Artemis Accords in 2023.
Why CLAT asks: Mission firsts and India's link (the Artemis Accords, Chandrayaan-3 near the south pole) are easy marks.
Sources: NASA: Artemis II; WHIO (ABC News): Artemis II crew exits spacecraft after successful splashdown
PSLV-C62 fails; the rocket's second failure in a row
12 January 2026
ISRO's PSLV-C62, launched from Sriharikota on 12 January 2026 carrying the Earth observation satellite EOS-N1 (Anvesha) and 15 co-passengers, failed to reach orbit when its third, solid-fuel stage developed a disturbance in roll rates near burnout, ISRO Chairman V. Narayanan said. All 16 payloads were lost. It was the PSLV's second consecutive failure involving the third stage, after PSLV-C61 with EOS-09 in May 2025.
Background. The Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle has four stages, alternating solid and liquid; its first successful flight was in 1994, and in 2017 PSLV-C37 placed a record 104 satellites in orbit. ISRO's heavier rocket is the LVM3, which launched Chandrayaan-3.
Why CLAT asks: PSLV versus GSLV/LVM3, and the 104-satellite record, are common space questions.
Sources: Spaceflight Now: India's PSLV suffers second consecutive launch failure, 16 satellites lost (12 January 2026); The Week: PSLV-C62 mission encounters 'anomaly' at end of PS3 stage
First Made-in-India memory modules ship from Micron's Sanand plant
28 February 2026
Micron's assembly and test plant at Sanand, Gujarat opened on 28 February 2026, and in March shipped the first Made-in-India memory modules to customers including Dell and HP. It packages and tests chips; it does not make wafers. India's first commercial wafer fab, by Tata Electronics with Taiwan's PSMC at Dholera, Gujarat, is meant to make 28-nanometre and older chips, with first output expected from late 2026 at the earliest.
Background. The India Semiconductor Mission was launched in December 2021 with an outlay of ₹76,000 crore. OSAT stands for Outsourced Semiconductor Assembly and Test.
Why CLAT asks: The difference between a fab (makes wafers) and an OSAT (packages and tests) is a likely trap.
Sources: Zetwerk: India semiconductor manufacturing 2026; tele.net: India seeks to strengthen its semiconductor value chain with fresh investments
Sarvam's India-built AI models arrive under the IndiaAI Mission
March 2026
Bengaluru's Sarvam AI was chosen in April 2025 as the first company to build an Indian foundation model from scratch under the IndiaAI Mission, with government compute support. In February and March 2026, around the AI Impact Summit, it released models trained in India, including Sarvam 30B and Sarvam 105B, built for Indian languages and voice. It is one of several teams funded under the Mission's foundation-model track.
Background. A 'sovereign' model is trained and hosted within the country, on its own data and compute, so it does not depend on foreign providers. The IndiaAI Mission was approved in March 2024 with about ₹10,372 crore, much of it for shared GPU compute.
Why CLAT asks: What 'sovereign AI' means and why governments want it make a plausible reading-comprehension theme.
Source: Business Today: India selects Sarvam to build sovereign AI model under IndiaAI Mission (April 2025)
Project Glasswing: an AI model held back for its hacking ability
7 April 2026
On 7 April 2026 Anthropic announced Project Glasswing, giving a small group of technology and security companies, including Amazon Web Services, Apple, Google, Microsoft, NVIDIA, Cisco and the Linux Foundation, access to an unreleased model, Claude Mythos Preview, to find and fix flaws in critical software. Anthropic said the model had found thousands of serious, previously unknown vulnerabilities across major operating systems and browsers, which were reported for patching, and that it would not release the model publicly until safeguards were ready.
Background. A 'zero-day' is a flaw unknown to the software's maker, so no fix exists when it is found. 'Responsible disclosure' means telling the maker privately so it can patch before details are published. India's national agency for cyber incidents is CERT-In, under the IT Act.
Why CLAT asks: Dual-use technology, useful for defence and attack alike, is a classic theme for passages on regulating AI.
Sources: The Hacker News: Anthropic's Claude Mythos finds (April 2026); Infosecurity Magazine: Anthropic launches Project Glasswing to use AI to find and fix critical software vulnerabilities
