To Mars, On A Shoestring Budget

We are in the space age! Where the Indian Budget plans have allocations to the tune of USD 7.4 bn¹ towards the development of space related activities, and sponsored space explorations, we also proudly stand to have been able to make sustainable, cheap missions. India's first interplanetary mission has made us the first nation in the entire world, to reach the Mars Orbit in the very first attempt. In many of firsts, ISRO is only the fourth space agency to have successfully reached the red planet's orbit, only after the Soviet Space Program, NASA and the European Space Agency.²

Interestingly, the total cost of the mission was approximately 450 Crores (US $ 74 mn). In comparison with the missions sponsored by the other space agencies, this is the cheapest mission by far. The following figure gives a comparative sketch of the costs of all the missions conducted to reach the Mars Orbit, as of yet. Our mission into the mars orbit comes at a comparative cost of about 11%