NSE Co-location Scam

In Context

• The Antonov An-225, has been “destroyed” in an attack on its base at Hostomel/Gostomel airport in Ukraine.

Antonov An-225

• About:
  • Known formally as the “Cossack”, its North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) operating code, the world knew the “super-heavy transport plane” better by its Ukrainian name, “Mriya”, or “the Dream”.
  • The 6-engine 84-metre-long Antonov An-225 aircraft, known as “Mriya”, with its 32-wheel landing gear, first took to the skies in 1988
    • It is the world’s largest cargo aircraft.
• Features: 
  • Mriya was developed for transportation of the Buran shuttle orbiter and components of the Energiya carrier rocket. 
  • It was also expected to be used as a flying space launching site in the reusable aerospace transport system (MAKS) with the aeroplane making its first stage and a small-size space shuttle with a fuel tank – the second stage. 
  • It can deliver extra-heavy oversize cargo to any point on the globe carrying it either inside the fuselage or on external stores. 
• Indian landing: 
  • It made its maiden landing in India, in May 2016, at Hyderabad’s Shamshabad airport while en route to Perth to deliver a 117-tonne power generator (from Prague, the Czech Republic) to a mine in Australia.
  •  It played an important role too in the COVID-19 fight, ferrying nearly 100 tonnes of medicines, laboratory kits, medical masks and personal protective equipment in various missions across Europe, Canada and to Africa.

Source:TH