In 2014 India put a spacecraft into orbit around Mars for less money than Hollywood spent making a film about being stuck in space. Mangalyaan cost about ₹450 crore, roughly $74 million. Gravity cost around $100 million. NASA's MAVEN, arriving two days earlier, cost nine times as much.
And it worked first time. The Soviets failed at Mars repeatedly. The Americans failed before they succeeded. More than half of all missions to that planet have failed, and no country had ever managed it on its debut.
The frugality dictated the engineering rather than decorating the press release. The PSLV rocket was not powerful enough to throw the craft straight at Mars, so they did not try. They swung it around Earth for a month, stretching the orbit a little with each burn, borrowing momentum until it could be flung at the right moment.
Every one of those burns had to work. They all did.
Built for six months. It kept sending back data for nearly eight years.