As the United States' NASA and Russia's Roscosmos, the world's most accomplished space agencies, face stagnant or even reduced budgets, India is increasing its space exploration spending for 2017-18 by more than 20 percent, from about $1.1 billion to $1.4 billion. Budget documents recently released by the agency show particularly healthy increases for space technology and space science, reflecting a belief by the Indian government that investing in space exploration will benefit the country in the long term.

The increases will provide initial funding for two new ambitious Indian space science missions—one to Mars and another to Venus. Although the budget documents do not provide much detail, reports in Indian newspapers suggest that the "Mars Orbiter Mission II" may include some kind of lander, with a launch in 2021 or 2022; the "Mission to Venus" will be a more straightforward orbiter. With plans for a Martian lander, it appears that India is trying to compete with the space program of China, its regional Asian rival.

These are heady days for India's space program, which has continued to scale up its ambitions since 2014, when its small 13kg Mars Orbiter Mission reached the red planet and began sending back a stream of data and images. India has also begun flight tests of a reusable space plane, the RLV-TD , with the aim of slashing launch costs.

At the same time its budget prospects are brightening, India is gearing up for one of its highest-ever profile launches this week. The country's workhorse Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle rocket will carry a payload of more than 100 small satellites into orbit, breaking the record of most satellites deployed in a single launch. The majority of the satellites in the Feb. 15 launch will come from the US-based Planet, which is sending 88 of its "Dove" satellites to Sun-synchronous orbit at an approximate altitude of 500km. Once there, the small, 4.7kg satellites will join an existing constellation of Planet satellites to image the Earth daily.