Chandrayaan-3: How India’s Moon Mission with a modest budget stands apart

ISRO has conducted 124 spacecraft missions and 92 launch missions till date.

India and the world are keeping their fingers crossed as the Chandrayaan-3 lunar mission is scheduled to attempt touchdown on the surface of the Moon on Wednesday evening. If successful, India will become the fourth country to land a working rover on the surface of the Moon, and the only country to do so at its southern pole. But like previous space missions by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), one of the factors that make Chandrayaan-3 stand out from missions by other space agencies is its frugal budget—lower than even those of Bollywood and Hollywood movies.

This is ISRO’s third expedition to the lunar surface. The first—Chandrayaan-1—was successful and even led to the detection of liquid water on the surface of the moon. However, a loss of communication led Chandrayaan-2 to crash into the lunar surface.

As India’s third lunar mission is just hours from touchdown, an analysis of past lunar surface efforts by space agencies across the world shows the difficulty of execution. Out of the 78 lunar probe missions — including landers, impactors and rovers — only 35 were successful, out of which three are still operational.

This means that more than 55 percent of them failed to reach the lunar surface safely. In fact, only around 54 percent of all lunar missions till date have been successful.

Frugal budget

ISRO has stood out for its space programme run on a relatively shoe-string budget. India’s budget for its space programme stood seventh in the world in 2022 for government spending at $1.93 billion. For comparison, the budget of the US space programme is as much as 3111 percent higher than India’s at $61.97 billion. In fact, ISRO’s Mangalyaan or Mars Orbiter Mission, which made a mark for being the first to achieve success at the first attempt by any country, was the cheapest mission to the red planet ever.

This is lower than the budgets of recent Hollywood blockbusters Oppenheimer, which cost around $100 million (Rs 813 crore) to make, and Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning, which had a budget of a huge $291 million (Rs 2,414 crore). Even the Bollywood film Adipurush had a bigger budget of $84 million (Rs 700 crore), according to some estimates.

Even when compared to lunar missions by other space agencies, Chandrayaan-3’s budget remains low. The recently crashed spacecraft made by Russia Luna-25, which was expected to land on the surface of the moon just days ahead of Chandrayaan-3, had a budget of around $190-200 million, as per media reports. Meanwhile, the US’ NASA is expected to spend as much as $93 billion for its moon exploration programme Artemis by 2025.

Follow the live the updates of Chandrayaan-3 landing here

Chandrayaan-2 had a higher budget than Chandrayaan-3 of around $118 million (Rs 978 crore). However, apart from the lander and rover, the payload of Chandrayaan-2 also had an orbiter which remains functional.

Impressive track record

Despite its limited resources, ISRO has an impressive track record. Till date, the space agency has conducted 124 spacecraft missions and 92 launch missions. Missions such as India’s first crewed spacecraft Gaganyaan are also in the planning stages.

India has the sixth-largest number of payloads in orbit, according to data from Space Track, which tracks artificial satellites. Moreover, between 1975 and 2022, India launched a total of 133 objects into outer space, the fifth highest in the world.