Chandrayaan-3 lands on the moon at budget half of Hollywood's 'Interstellar' movie

India created a history today after its moon mission Chandrayaan-3 by Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) achieved what had never been done before by landing a spacecraft on the Moon's southern pole. This milestone comes days after Russia's first moon lander, The Luna-25, in 47 years crashed into the lunar surface on August 21. With Chandrayaan-3 landing smoothly on the Moon, India has become the fourth country after the U.S., Russia, and China to achieve that feat, and the first to land on one of the moon’s lunar poles.

What is even more astonishing is that India achieved this feat at a mere budget of ₹615 crore ($75 million), which is less than half of Hollywood's epic science fiction movie Interstellar. Created at a cost of $165 million in 2014, Interstellar was a movie about a group of astronauts who travel through a wormhole near Saturn in search of a new home for humankind.

The Chandrayaan-3 was planned following the unsuccessful Chandrayaan-2 mission, at a budget of around ₹615 crore, which included ₹250 crore for the lander, rover, and propulsion module, and ₹365 crore for launch costs.

It is notable that the cost of the Chandrayaan-3 mission was lesser than the Chandrayaan-2 which costed ₹978 crore to India, of which ₹603 crore was spent on the orbiter, lander, rover, navigation, and assistance on the ground system, and ₹375 crore on the spacecraft launch carrier.

On this astonishing achievement, Prime Minister Narendra Modi applauded the ISRO scientists, terming it a "historic day" for India's space sector. "Congratulations to @isro for the remarkable success of the Chandrayaan-3 lunar mission."

The PM says the current achievement marks the beginning of India's march towards becoming a "developed economy". This also marks the country's resolve to cross the sea of hardships, he adds.

"This moment marks the resolve of 140 crore heartbeats. This also signifies the trust of new energy and India's bright future."

The Chandrayaan-3 lander Vikram made soft landing on the Lunar surface successfully after a 40-day journey at 6.04 PM IST today, and deployed the Rover to carry out an "in-situ chemical analysis" of the lunar surface. The cameras onboard the Vikram also confirmed the touchdown by beaming the pictures of the moon.