India’s impressive and successful landing of Chandrayaan-3 near the South Pole of the Moon ushers in a new era of space exploration. While being driven by Modi’s nationalist politics, and signaling the end of the dominance of space by the US, China and Russia, it also demonstrates the limits of such national projects. International cooperation is the future of  space, argues Tony Milligan.

Chandrayaan-3’s soft landing near to the lunar South Pole was a thing of beauty. A gentle and well-controlled arc towards a welcoming surface. There were no last-minute surprises, and few landings have ever seemed so smooth. Certainly not the failed Russian attempt to set Luna-25 down on the surface only a few days earlier. Nor India’s own unsuccessful attempt at a soft touchdown back in 2019, when expectations were not so high.

This success four years later, impressive as it is, does not put India on a par with China and the US as a space superpower. But it does underline its place within the Asian big three: China, India, and Japan, with China being the leader. It also indicates that India will eventually overtake the increasingly dysfunctional Russian space program. Not yet though. Indian funding sits around $1.6bn, roughly, a dollar for every citizen in the country, and less than half of Russia’s space budget. Overall, the successful Chandrayaan-3 mission cost only about the same as the average Hollywood movie, and significantly less than the production costs of Barbie. In the bigger picture, India’s success at landing near the south pole of the Moon indicates a move towards the so-called democratization of space.