India's lunar spacecraft landed safely near the Moon's little-explored south pole Wednesday, sparking wild celebrations and applause among technicians guiding the mission.
"Chandrayaan-3 has successfully soft-landed on the Moon," the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) announced at its headquarters.
The mission is seen as crucial to lunar exploration and India's standing as a space power, just days after a similar Russian lander crashed.
This is India's second attempt to land a spacecraft on the moon and comes less than a week after Russia's Luna-25 mission failed.
Chandrayaan means "moon vehicle" in Hindi and Sanskrit. In 2019, ISRO's Chandrayaan-2 mission successfully deployed an orbiter but its lander crashed.
Earlier Wednesday, ISRO said it was all set to activate the automatic landing sequence of the spacecraft, triggering the algorithm that will take over once it reaches the designated spot and help it land.
The Chandrayaan-3 is expected to remain functional for two weeks, running a series of experiments, including a spectrometer analysis of the mineral composition of the lunar surface.
"Landing on the south pole (of the moon) would actually allow India to explore if there is water ice on the moon. And this is very important for cumulative data and science on the geology of the moon," said Carla Filotico, a partner and managing director at consultancy SpaceTec Partners.
