Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) chairman G Madhavan Nair today said the country should be proud of Chandrayaan-1 for being a successful low cost planetary mission.
"Most of the missions are expensive between one and two USD billion. India can be proud as Chandrayaan-1 was less than USD 100-million mission," Nair told reporters shortly after the mission was formally called off.
"We started the Indian mission inviting queries, the response was very good. We spent USD 85 million, while USD 30 million were spent by the other partners," he said.
Through its maiden Rs 400 crore moon mission, Chandrayaan 1, India has set a very good example, the ISRO chief said.
"No country has done mission of this kind for less than USD 500 million," said Nair, who was talking to reporters on the eve of the start of the eighth international conference on Low Cost Planetary missions.
The conference will be kicked off tomorrow by Goa chief minister Digamber Kamat.
According to Nair, with the low cost involvement, interest in planetary explorations will increase thereby expanding the area of activities.
The interest of global community in low cost planetary missions is good and it will also encourage agencies to take up more missions, he said.
"The high cost is because of the design of the craft which has to stand the pressure of radiation. Lot of man-hours were taken to develop such system," he said, adding experiences gained in the past reduced the cost of the missions.
