Chandrayaan-3 landing: The mission was launched on July 14 from Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh.
Hours before India's Chandrayaan-3 completes its Moon mission, Tesla chief and world's richest man Elon Musk has reacted to it. Responding to a post on X (formerly Twitter) that says the cost of Chandrayaan-3 is less that the budget of Interstellar, Mr Musk said the mission is "good for India". The post on X said the budget of India's moon mission is $75 million, while makes of Interstellar - starring Matthew McConaughey - spent $165 million on the project. The Vikram lander on board Chandrayaan-3 will land on the lunar surface on Wednesday evening.
On the day of the launch, news agency Reuters said in a report that Chandrayaan-3 has been built on a budget of just under $75 million (around Rs 615 crore). Giving more details, an ANI report later said that the approved cost of Chandrayaan-3 is Rs 250 crore (excluding launch vehicle costs).
After a dollar-to-rupee conversion, the cost of interstellar comes to around 1,200 crore.
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Such comparisons had surfaced earlier too when Indian users of X claimed the budget of Chandrayaan-3 is less than that of Prabhas and Kriti Sanon-starrer 'Adipurush' (Rs 700 crore).
However, trade analysts pegged the movie's budget at much lower. Official figure is not available.
Chandrayaan-3 includes a 2-metre tall lander designed to deploy a rover near the lunar south pole where it is expected to remain functional for two weeks running a series of experiments.
Chandrayaan-3's development phase commenced in January 2020, with the launch planned sometime in 2021. However, the Covid-19 pandemic brought an unforeseen delay to the mission's progress.
ISRO's Chandrayaan-2 mission in 2020 successfully deployed an orbiter but its lander and rover were destroyed in a crash near where the Chandrayan-3 will attempt a touchdown.