Why India's Space Budget Makes No Sense

Everyone's celebrating Shubhanshu Shukla going to the ISS last week.

I'm looking at different numbers.

₹13,043 crore ($1.56 billion). That's India's total space budget for 2024-25.

While NASA gets $24.9 billion & China spends over $14 billion annually.

Yet India just became the 4th country, after USA, Russia and China to achieve successful space docking. We're accomplishing what typically requires superpower budgets, with 1/10th their resources.

There's something here worth understanding.

The Indian Advantage

We’ve been doing this since forever. My grandmother could stretch ₹100 to feed the whole family for a week.  Every Indian household runs on this invisible superpower, or even when we’re making less we’re doing more.

We've been practicing constraint driven innovation or “Jugaad” since before it had a fancy name.

Now we're applying that same mindset to rocket science.

Chandrayaan-3 cost ₹615 crore and successfully landed on the Moon's south pole. For comparison, Russia's Luna-25 mission had a much larger budget and didn't achieve its landing objective.

I think it’s more about the approach and less about the money.

When every rupee matters, you test everything twice & build better backups. Because when your resources are limited, creativity becomes unlimited.

We spend ₹40-50 crore per mission on average. International missions often cost 3-10 times more.

The Startup Revolution

Our government approved a ₹1,000 crore fund in 2024 to support space startups.

But here's what's fascinating, these young companies aren't trying to copy SpaceX. They're solving fundamentally different problems.

Skyroot built India's first private rocket for a fraction of what international startups spend just on regulatory paperwork. 

While Pixxel is building satellites that cost less while delivering better data.

They've inherited something valuable: the ability to innovate within constraints rather than despite them.

Our Track Record Speaks Quietly

Let me share some numbers without the chest-thumping:

• Mars Orbiter Mission: ₹450 crore, worked on first try

• Chandrayaan-3: ₹615 crore, successful lunar landing

• 104 satellites in one launch: Still a world record

Based on this trajectory, our 2040 Moon mission might cost ₹5,000-7,000 crore. NASA's Artemis program costs $93 billion.

We're not trying to compete on spending but we're definitely more focused on optimizing outcomes.

What This Really Means

Every successful mission builds quiet confidence. Not the loud kind, the kind that comes from knowing you can solve complex problems with whatever resources you have.

When your engineers can dock satellites in orbit for a fraction of international costs, suddenly building a profitable fintech platform or a scalable healthcare solution feels achievable.

The space program isn't just reaching for the stars. It's demonstrating something valuable to ourselves and the world: that meaningful innovation can emerge from resourceful engineering rather than unlimited budgets.

Sometimes the best solutions come from having just enough, and making it count.

And that's a lesson worth sharing beyond our borders.