India basks in pride as its lunar rover takes a walk on the moon

The newspaper headlines the morning after India made history said it all: "The moon is Indian," declared English-language daily The Indian Express as it heralded the country's achievement of becoming the first nation to land a spacecraft near the moon's south pole.

"India goes where no nation's gone before," screamed another headline in the Times of India.

As the dust raised by the spacecraft's lander, Vikram, settled more than 380,000 kilometres away and the rover, named Pragyaan, took its first steps on the lunar surface Thursday, the mood down on Earth was still celebratory.

"Our scientists proved to the world that they are also capable," Mumbai resident Kirit Shah told Indian news agency ANI.

He was filled with pride at the success of Chandrayaan-3 mission, the successor to a 2019 attempt called Chandrayaan-2, which failed to land.

Big feat on a small budget

Indians already saw their space program, which has orbited the moon and Mars, as a point of pride even before the historic soft landing near the moon's rugged and unexplored south pole, where it's much more difficult to land than closer to the equator.

It's a major technical feat for the 54-year-old Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), executed on a relatively modest budget of $74 million US, and one that's expected to spark increased interest and investment in India's growing private space sector.

The country erupted with celebratory dancing and drumming on the streets after tens of millions of Indians watched the moon landing live. India's revered national cricket team, in Ireland for matches, gathered around a television to witness the historic moment and tweeted their elated reaction.

In the lead-up to the mission's crucial moment, prayers for its success rang out in countless temples, mosques and Sikh gurdwaras across the country.

WATCH | India makes history with moon south pole landing:

"It's a great achievement for a nation like India because we're still not as developed as the U.S. or China," said New Delhi resident Pawan Rathore, referring to two of the other three countries who have made it to the moon.

By comparison, NASA's budget in the 2023 fiscal year is $25.4 billion US compared to ISRO's less than $1.5 billion.

"In Hollywood, people make movies for that cost," Rathore said referring to the cost of the moon mission. "And we have achieved … the entire project of landing on the moon."

'No one can do it like we do'

The fact that Chandrayaan-3 reached the moon's challenging southern region, which is covered with deep craters, many of which are in permanent shadow, on a shoe-string budget is often mentioned by Indian officials.

The mission used gravitational pull to get to the moon, which saved money on fuel but increased the time the spacecraft took to reach its destination.

"These are very cost-effective missions," a jubilant S. Somanath, chairman of ISRO, said after the landing Wednesday.

"No one in the world can do it like we do."

He added with a laugh that he wouldn't disclose all "the secrets" of the mission. "We don't want everyone else to become so cost-effective," he said.

While this mission was run by the country's public space program, the big money in space exploration is in the private space sector, and investments are expected to pour in after Chandrayaan-3's success.

"There are so many new startups that are coming into the industry," said Narayan Prasad, who runs Satsearch, a space products website. He also co-founded Indian space economy think tank Spaceport SARABHAI.

"[They] will be sought after by every other country that wants to go to the moon," he said.

He anticipated a "snowball effect," with the landing proving that India has the technological know-how and supply chains to helm serious space missions.

After decades of a state monopoly on space exploration, the Indian government opened up its space rocket launches to private companies in 2020 in an effort to harness their investment potential, and the sector exploded.

Before the pandemic, the South Asian country had only a handful of space startups, but that number has now ballooned to more than 150. The size of the private market is currently $9 billion US, but it's expected to more than triple by the end of the decade.

Compare that to the budget for India's space agency, which was less than $1.5 billion US this year.

Still, the agency is already focused on its next launch, Aditya-L1, a mission to study the sun, slated for next month. There will also be a return to the moon, in conjunction with Japan's space agency, in either 2024 or 2025.

ISRO is also working on Gaganyaan, a three-day mission to send three of its astronauts to space on an Indian-built spacecraft.

Growing space power

For India's prime minister, Narendra Modi, the successful moon landing goes hand-in-hand with the country's diplomatic strategy to position itself as a global power to be reckoned with.

He called it "a victory cry of a new, developed India."

And it comes at an opportune moment: a couple of weeks out from the G20 leaders' summit, which New Delhi is hosting, and less than a week after Russia's own failed attempt to reach the same southern lunar region.

"[Chandrayaan-3's triumph] reflects the aspirations and capabilities of 1.4 billion Indians," Modi said in a speech moments after the lander touched down on the moon's surface.

It shows that any country, including those from the global south, is capable of achieving similar missions, he said.

"This success belongs to all of humanity, and it will help more missions by other countries in the future."

Russia's Vladimir Putin, in a statement posted on the Kremlin website, congratulated India on the mission and the "impressive progress made by India in the area of science and technology."

American vice-president Kamala Harris also offered her compliments on X, formerly known as Twitter, for the "incredible feat."

The U.S. has said it will work with India on future space missions, including to the international space station, and share space technology.

The United States sees such a partnership as a counter to their mutual rival, China, which also has growing space ambitions.

A bright future

India's aspirations don't end with the moon, a giddy head of the country's space agency confirmed after the landing.

"It gives confidence" to move forward with missions to "land on Mars, maybe in the future go to Venus and other planets," said Somanath.

Others see the landing as the stuff of dreams that will fuel a younger generation of Indians.

"Even if five kids out of 100 get inspired by a mission of this nature to do more science and to have a science-driven career, the return on investment is much bigger than what is being spent on this endeavour," Prasad told CBC News.

Prasad compared what Chandrayaan-3's success could bring to India to what the Apollo missions, which saw the first human walk on the moon, did to the American psyche.

"It made them feel like they were invincible as a country."