Topline
With a rocket launched from its east coast last month, India entered a race to become the first nation to successfully put a lander on the moon in 2023 in a mission that is expected to cost less than the budget of films like Gravity and The Martian, amid renewed global interest to explore the lunar surface.
This screen grab made from video footage from ISRO via AFPTV taken on July 14, 2023 shows an Indian … [+] Space Research Organisation (ISRO) rocket carrying the Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft lifting off from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota. ISRO/AFPTV/AFP via Getty Images
Key Facts
The mission which is called Chandrayaan-3, which translates to Mooncraft-3, intends to put a lander and a rover on the moon’s scarcely explored south pole—making India only the fourth country after the U.S., Russia and China to achieve a soft landing on the moon. On Saturday, the Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft entered the moon’s orbit as part of a series of complex maneuvers and began sending its first images. The entire mission has an estimated cost of only $74 million (₹6.15 billion) according to an estimate provided by ISRO in 2020. The mission before that, Chandrayaan-2, whose lander crashed on the moon’s surface in 2019, had a slightly higher cost of $96.5 million (₹8 billion)—but that mission also included an orbiter that remains operational and continues to revolve around the moon.
News Peg
To put the Chandrayaan-3’s $74 million budget into context, NASA’s MAVEN Mars mission had an estimated cost of $671 million while the European Space Agency Mars Express had a budget of around $164 million (€150 million). A comparison that is often used for India’s space missions—even by the country’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi—is with Hollywood space blockbusters like Gravity, Interstellar and The Martian. All of those movies had budgets exceeding $100 million, with Interstellar costing more than twice as much as Chandrayaan-3’s entire budget.
Tangent
The first attempt this year to land on the moon took place in April this year when Japanese private space firm Ispace attempted to land its Hakuto-R rover on the moon. The mission, however, ended in failure after crashing on the lunar surface.
What To Watch For
India’s spacecraft is expected to land near the Moon’s south pole on August 23, but it may end up getting beaten to the punch by Russia’s Luna-25 spacecraft, which is scheduled to launch on Thursday. Luna-25 also plans to land near the South Pole and, according to Reuters, its journey to the moon is on a more accelerated timetable—which includes a five-day flight to the moon, followed by five to seven days of orbiting before descending on the lunar surface.
Further Reading
India’s Moon hope enters lunar orbit (Cosmos)
Chandrayaan-3: Historic India Moon mission sends new photos of lunar surface (BBC)