Pallava Bagla describing how ISRO manages to keep the costs low.
At the moment, he says, India uses small rocket launchers because they don’t have anything stronger. But that means India’s spacecraft take much longer to reach their destination.
So, when Chandrayaan-3 was launched, it orbited the Earth several times before it was sling-shot into the lunar orbit, where it went around the Moon a few times before landing. On the other hand, Russia’s Luna-25 escaped the Earth’s gravity quickly riding a powerful Soyuz rocket.
“We used Mother Earth’s gravity to nudge us to the Moon. It took us weeks and a lot of resourceful planning. Isro has mastered this and done it successfully so many times.”