Cost-Efficient Space Missions: Boon or Bane?

Aside from technological prowess, the domestic space sector is known to produce cost-efficient interventions with a high degree of success rate. ISRO’s Mangalyaan was the most affordable mission to Mars in the world. Also known as the Mars Orbiter Mission, Mangalyaan had a budget of $74 million compared to NASA’s Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) spacecraft costing $528 million. Chandrayaan 2 is known to have a budget smaller than the Hollywood movie Avengers: Endgame.
However, the lower cost has often come at the cost of compromising the scope and scale of these missions. Magalyaan carried fewer instruments than MAVEN did, limiting the capacity for further exploration.
This has also been the case with other Indian space missions such as Chandrayaan 1 and Gaganyaan which come at a much smaller cost but are also limited in their operational scope and timeframes. The concentration of space technology within the government sphere of ISRO, which is funded directly by the government, is also cited as one of the reasons for why Indian space missions have been cheaper with limited functionalities. Other major international space agencies such as USA’s NASA and EU’s ESA are known to nurture the private space industrial sector and receive funding beyond support from governments.
Although India now boasts of more than 400 private space companies and ranks fifth globally in number of space companies, there is the scope and a need to create space for synergistic efforts and shift the manufacturing and development of equipment from ISRO to the private sector, giving the former a larger canvas for research and development. There is also a need to expand the utility of space technology to other sectors which can perhaps only come from enhanced collaboration between ISRO, the private sector players, and academic institutions.