India made history and entered the elite space club when it became the first country to land on the lunar south pole yesterday. The nation became the fourth to successfully soft land on the Moon’s surface.
What’s more extraordinary is that India spent a reported $75 million to land the Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft on the satellite. More money was spent to make Interstellar and Gravity.
ISRO and NASA
The Indian Space Research Organization’s (ISRO) annual budget for 2023-24 is $1.5 billion, while NASA received $25.4 billion in funding this year.
Rover walks on Moon
A day after its landing, the Moon rover Pragyaan exited the spacecraft to begin its exploration of the lunar surface. The rover is looking for water ice, potentially one of the Moon’s most valuable resources.
ISRO’s remarkable achievement under such a low budget has raised eyebrows within the space travel community, especially when America and China are planning human missions to the Moon’s south pole.