New Delhi: India wants to land its first citizen on the Moon by 2040, build an International Space Station-like docking hub by 2035, and bring back lunar samples in the next five years. But Sriharikota, we have a situation. While it is reaching breathlessly for the stars, the Indian space agency only has about 13,000 employees and a limited budget. Add to that youngsters jumping ship for better opportunities and the picture becomes clearer.
After the success of the Chandrayaan-3 mission in 2023, which confirmed India’s landing near the lunar south pole—a feat never before accomplished—the government’s focus turned even more towards space. Overnight, the Indian space agency became the pride of the nation, “with every child of India seeing their future in ISRO,” as Prime Minister Narendra Modi stated following Chandrayaan-3’s triumph. And rightfully so.
While India’s interest and aspirations in the country’s space programme have grown, the same cannot be said about the resources being invested in the sector. Space enthusiasts and independent experts have criticised this misplaced priority of the government.
In October last year, Gareeb Scientist, a science communicator, posted on X that ISRO’s annual budget was only worth what Indian Railways spent on cleaning gutka stains every year. “Entire ISRO budget worth spent on cleaning gutka stains,” the handle wrote.
In the Union Budget 2025-26, the Department of Space was allocated Rs 13,416.20 crore, only slightly higher than what it was in the previous year—Rs 13,042.75 crore. This figure too was revised downwards to Rs 11,725.75 crore in the revised estimate. On the other hand, the Railways in a press statement in 2021 to announce the setting up of kiosks for spittoon pouches said it spent around Rs 12,000 crore each year on cleaning gutka stains.
Gareeb Scientist’s post, which has since garnered 2.19 lakh views, more than 1,771 likes, and at least 239 reposts, triggered a larger debate on the need to channel more resources into the space sector. While there has been a year-on-year increase in the budget allocated to ISRO in recent years, the hike is still minuscule and insufficient to fund India’s big-ticket missions. The result—missions stalled for years, delays in technology development leading to dependence on outdated tech, and the inability to attract a specialised workforce.
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The tag of frugal missions
Comparisons like the one by Gareeb Scientist were made earlier this year too. When Christopher Nolan’s magnum opus Interstellar was re-released in India in February, Indians were reminded about how this big-budget Hollywood blockbuster was made at twice the cost India spent to land a spacecraft near the lunar south pole.
The 2014 sci-fi movie was made with a budget of USD 165 million, while the entire Chandrayaan-3 mission was conceived with a shoestring budget of only USD 75 million.
The comparisons have surprised the world, with even Elon Musk making a mention. “Good for India,” he wrote on X, with an emoji of the Indian flag, right after India landed on the Moon. And India wore this as a badge of honour.
Former ISRO chairperson S. Somanath said India is basing its space programme on “frugal innovations”. “We have shown the world that big-ticket space missions do not depend on large budgets. Frugal innovations are our speciality,” Somanath told ThePrint.
But on many fronts, this frugality is being forced on ISRO. It amounted to making a virtue out of adversity. “In India’s GDP, the space department contributes to nearly seven percent of earnings, but it only gets 0.6 percent of the budgetary share,” an ISRO official, who wished not to be named, told ThePrint.
And this has irked space enthusiasts.
An X profile called ISRO Spaceflight, which posts the latest developments of the Indian space agency, pointed out that the Rs 13,416 crore allotted to the Department of Space in the Union Budget is only expected to decrease in the revised budget. “Keep in mind that this is only the promised budget, and the amount of funds ISRO will actually receive in the end (i.e. the revised budget) will be lower than this amount (like every year),” it posted.
ISRO and the Department of Space have been allotted a budget of ₹13,416.2 Crore in the FY2025-26 Union Budget, a 2.86% increase compared to last year's promised budget (₹13,042.75 Cr). 💸
The ISRO projects that will be drawing from this budget are as follows:
1. Gaganyaan
2.… pic.twitter.com/42kMeXHV7X
— ISRO Spaceflight (@ISROSpaceflight) February 1, 2025
The post continued, “ISRO had been projecting a considerable increase in their budget given the addition of projects such as Chandrayaan-4, Shukrayaan, NGLV, and BAS (which were approved in 2024). However, that is not reflected in this Union Budget.”
A senior ISRO official, who wished not to be named, told ThePrint that getting budgets approved, especially for big-ticket missions, is a lengthy process. After ISRO prepares an estimate for each mission, it is assessed by the Space Commission, as well as for missions of national importance by the tri-forces, before it is finalised. “Since most missions continue for a long period, the projections do not always align with the actual budget we receive. The amount gets carried to the next year,” the official explained.
High attrition, poor specialisation
When a 31-year-old former ISRO employee first received the news that he had cleared the centralised recruitment exams to get into the Indian space agency back in 2017, his parents organised a full day of prayers at their village temple. Relatives were promptly informed, and after every other sentence, his father, a retired engineer, made sure to mention, “He is my son, after all.” But that’s where the awe ended.
“After five years, when you see your classmates earning 10 times more than you are, and you are not even getting intellectually challenged, you get frustrated,” the scientist said.
He quit ISRO in 2023.
In recent years, despite the badge of honour attached to ISRO, many like him have left for better opportunities. And the pit is deeper than it looks.
ISRO data shows that the attrition rate in the organisation is around two to three percent, but a closer look reveals that most scientists quit ISRO at the entry level. Data shows that between 2012 and 2017, as many as 289 scientists left 25 institutes run by ISRO.
The situation has remained the same since, with a minor decline in 2023 and 2024 after the launch of missions like Chandrayaan-3 and Aditya-L1—India’s first mission to study the Sun.
Between 2018 and 2022, as many as 381 scientists across ISRO centres resigned, and from 2023 to May 2024, around 38 scientists quit the space agency for greener pastures. Data also shows that as of 2023, ISRO had 9,337 group A or tier-1 scientists, 2,303 group B scientists, and 1,141 group C scientists, apart from its administrative staff.
For ISRO, it is not just about retaining its scientists. It is also struggling to hire the brightest scientific minds of the country. This is no secret, and top ISRO officials agree.
At an event at IIT-Madras, Somanath said ISRO, despite being India’s apex space centre, is unable to hire graduates from top institutes like the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs).
He pointed out that currently, less than one percent of ISRO’s employees are from IITs.
“We go to recruit from IITs, and the moment they hear the package, the room gets empty,” the former ISRO chief said, while stressing that the Indian space agency was not getting the best talent of the country.
In a speech in Parliament, Thiruvananthapuram MP Shashi Tharoor too mentioned the absence of graduates from premier institutes of the country in ISRO’s space missions. “If IITians went to Silicon Valley, CETians (College of Engineering, Thiruvananthapuram) took us to the Moon,” Tharoor said as he mentioned that among the scientists who worked on Chandrayaan-3, most were alumni of CET—a lesser-known government college in Kerala.
At least five current and former ISRO scientists ThePrint spoke to said that low pay and the lack of challenging research opportunities were the primary reasons behind youngsters opting for private opportunities.
After holding their cards close to their chests for decades, the government, in 2020, created the Indian National Space Promotion and Authorization Centre (IN-SPACe) to facilitate private companies’ participation in the space sector. In 2023, it went on to formulate the Indian Space Policy 2023, which also facilitated an increased role of private players in the industry.
This became an avenue for young talent to explore opportunities in the private space sector.
Many who enter India’s space agency are now looking at using the platform to build contacts and capabilities over a few years before using it as a launchpad to set up their own space startups. Latest data shows that India has nearly 200 registered space startups.
Curiously, among all the ISRO centres, the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre in Thiruvananthapuram and the Space Applications Centre in Ahmedabad—both among the most coveted centres of ISRO—recorded the highest attrition.
It is UR Rao Space Centre (URSC) in Bengaluru that saw the lowest resignations.
However, while the disparity in attrition rates from various ISRO centres could depend on different factors, such as work environment, salaries, and work opportunities, former ISRO officials highlighted that in the URSC, the work is so specialised and niche that employees with domain mastery become unemployable anywhere outside ISRO.
The URSC continues to operate in areas that are still niche and not explored by the nascent private space industry in India. “In some of the specialised centres, scientists work not out of choice but due to a lack of opportunities,” another former ISRO official said.
Limited technology developments
A workday at the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota is as predictable as it gets.
When a mission launch date is finalised, the Centre springs into action, covering every aspect from design to testing and operation, right down to the details.
Most of the launch vehicles, such as ISRO’s trusted Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (operational since the 1990s) and the Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (operational since the early 2000s), have been operational for several decades.
Nearly two decades after building its last launch vehicle, ISRO developed the Small Satellite Launch Vehicle (SSLV), which took its maiden flight in 2022. The launcher, however, failed to place the satellites in orbit back then.
But corrections to this technology have been made since. ISRO scientists have mastered its technology to every tiny detail; and unless something goes horribly out of plan, every launch works like clockwork.
While this confirms the bankability of ISRO’s technology, it also raises questions about the agency’s lack of latest innovations and research. Many technological developments and research initiatives that the space agency had initiated over the last few years have either been halted or have moved at a snail’s pace.
India’s Reusable Launch Vehicle (RLV), Pushpak—a sustainable technology for launch vehicles that the space agency committed to developing way back in 2010—is still not ready.
This is after government and private space agencies across the world have already mastered the technology. Musk’s SpaceX developed the reusable technology for its Falcon 9 rocket in the 2010s. RLVs don’t just allow launch agencies to reuse the rockets for multiple missions, they also significantly reduce the cost of missions.
Advancements in developing heavier launch vehicles, capable of accommodating higher payloads, have also been an area of struggle for the agency. Although ISRO has presented various designs of the Next Generation Launch Vehicles (NGLV) at various forums, a launch with the new rocket is still far away.
But despite these shortcomings, ISRO scientists are not giving up.
They are confident that if the Indian space programme can chart the long and tedious journey from pushing rocket parts on bicycles in 1963 to becoming the first in the world to land near the lunar south pole, it can brave minor gaps in the system.
The next big mission, which aims to launch the first Indians to space—Gaganyaan—awaits.
What the agency lacks in resources, staff and technology, it will make up for in intellect and determination.
(Edited by Radifah Kabir)
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New Delhi replying to Sriharikota—itna paisa mein itna ich milega.