When the Indian Space Research Organization's (ISRO) Chandrayaan-3 mission landed on the moon, more than 8 million people tuned in for the event's YouTube livestream — a record for the site.
The landing was a win for India's low-cost space engineering, and science, as well as a quiet initiative to rebrand India's 54-year-old space agency as approachable, according to more than a dozen current and former employees, and 10 consultants and industry experts.
"ISRO used to be a very closed organization. There was hesitation in talking about its missions and somewhat of a culture of secrecy," said Namrata Goswami, a space policy expert and professor at the Thunderbird School of Global Management at Arizona State University. "Fast forward to 2023, I was surprised by the amount of transparency from them. That is very new, and very welcome."