Budget-friendly!


When scientists from India's space agency set out to plan the Chandrayaan-3 moon mission, they knew they had one more chance to make history by landing on the lunar south pole following a failed effort four years before. They also had to work on a tight budget, spending only 6.15 billion rupees, or around $75 million, on the operation. From minimising rocket costs to building a made-in-India supply base, the Indian Space Research Organization's (ISRO) achievement with the Chandrayaan-3 moon landing demonstrates how the organisation has developed a system of achieving more with less, according to officials, suppliers, and experts.

Future missions, including a project to study the sun due to launch next month and a plan to put astronauts in space, will put ISRO's record for economic innovation to the test. Although India's government budgeted $1.66 billion for the Department of Space for the fiscal year ending in March, it spent almost 25% less. The current fiscal year's budget is $1.52 billion. On the other hand, NASA has a current-year budget of $25 billion. In other words, the annual increase in NASA's budget - $1.3 billion - was more significant than the total amount spent by ISRO.

ISRO cut expenses on Chandrayaan-3 by taking a longer route to the moon, allowing it to employ less powerful - and thus less expensive - propulsion systems. It took more than 40 days for Chandrayaan-3 to reach the moon, looping through expanding orbits to use the Earth's gravitational force as a catapult. In comparison, Russia's Luna-25 mission, which crashed before attempting to land on the moon's south pole, was on a more direct path to the moon. Russia has not revealed how much money it spent on the botched mission. "Taking a direct route requires more power, more fuel, and is far more expensive," said Somak Raychaudhury, vice chancellor of Ashoka University and an astronomer.

 ISRO also built several of the lander's components, such as the cameras, altimeter, and danger avoidance sensors. To keep prices down, it used Indian suppliers for vehicle assembly, freight, and electronics. To save time and money, the number of design prototypes was reduced. "By sourcing equipment and design elements locally, we can significantly reduce the price." "A similar setup by an international vendor would cost four to five times as much," said Amit Sharma, CEO of Tata Consulting Engineers, a vendor to ISRO for the Chandrayaan-3 project.

 "Taking a direct route requires more power, more fuel, and is far more expensive," said Somak Raychaudhury, vice chancellor of Ashoka University and an astronomer. Many of the ISRO experts who worked on the failed Chandrayaan-2 mission to the lunar south pole in 2019 have returned for the present expedition.ISRO is preparing to launch the Aditya-L1 satellite, a solar observatory in orbit, in September. It intends to send astronauts to space in a mission that, according to ISRO's Somanath, might take place by 2025.