Rarely-explored South Pole of the Moon is where India's third lunar mission is eyeing to land a lander and rover on August 23.
The lander, Chandrayaan 3, started its final stage of the mission on Thursday when it separated from the propulsion module that had been bringing it near the Moon, reports BBC.
However, a Russian spaceship is also voyaging towards the moon’s South Pole, it said.
Luna-25 is Russia’s first moon mission since 1976, when the country was a part of the Soviet Union.
The Luna-25, which was launched last week, is set to make a soft landing on August 21 or August 22.
If Luna-25 succeeds in making the soft landing as scheduled, Chandrayaan-3 will have to settle for being a close second, said the report.
However, the much-anticipated Chandrayaan 3’s landing will bring India into the list of nations—the US, the former Soviet Union, and China—that made it to the lunar surface, the report also said.
The Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft was launched on July 14 but made several Earth orbits before entering lunar orbit on August 5. Since then, the spacecraft has been circling the Moon in preparation for the landing, said the report.
There has been talk of a "mini space race" as both Russian and Indian spacecraft are inching towards history together, it added.
The Indian Space Research Organisation, however, is keen to call it a new "meeting point" on the moon rather than a race.
"Isro has never been in any race, right from the day one of its inception in the 1960s," an Isro spokesman told the BBC.
Bd-pratidin English/Lutful Hoque
