India's third lunar mission, which is scheduled to arrive on the Moon on Wednesday, will attempt to make history. If Chandrayaan-3 succeeds, India will be the first nation to set down close to the Moon's little-visited south pole.
If successful, it will also be only the fourth country to achieve a soft landing on the Moon - the US, the former Soviet Union, and China have all landed near the equator.
India's attempt comes just days after Russia's Luna-25 crashed while trying to touch down in the same region.
India's attempt to land its Chandrayaan-2 mission near the south pole in 2019 was unsuccessful - it crashed into the lunar surface.
So all eyes are now on Chandrayaan-3, the spacecraft with an orbiter, lander, and a rover lifted off on 14 July from the Sriharikota space center in south India.
The lander - called Vikram after Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) founder Vikram Sarabhai - carries within its belly the 26kg rover named Pragyaan, the Sanskrit word for wisdom. One of its main objectives is to search for water-based ice, which researchers believe may one day allow for human settlement on the Moon. Its journey to the Moon has generated a lot of excitement in India.
If successful, it will also be only the fourth country to achieve a soft landing on the Moon - the US, the former Soviet Union, and China have all landed near the equator.
India's attempt comes just days after Russia's Luna-25 crashed while trying to touch down in the same region.
India's attempt to land its Chandrayaan-2 mission near the south pole in 2019 was unsuccessful - it crashed into the lunar surface.
So all eyes are now on Chandrayaan-3, the spacecraft with an orbiter, lander, and a rover lifted off on 14 July from the Sriharikota space center in south India.
The lander - called Vikram after Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) founder Vikram Sarabhai - carries within its belly the 26kg rover named Pragyaan, the Sanskrit word for wisdom. One of its main objectives is to search for water-based ice, which researchers believe may one day allow for human settlement on the Moon. Its journey to the Moon has generated a lot of excitement in India.
