India was just an hour away from Wednesday's second attempt to land on the moon. The mission was seen as crucial to lunar exploration and the country's space power status, just days after a similar Russian lander crashed.
Indian Space Research Organization's (ISRO) Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft will attempt to land on the Moon's south pole at approximately 6:04 p.m. local time (1234 GMT) on Wednesday, less than a week after the failure of Russia's Luna-25 mission.

On Wednesday, ISRO announced that everything is ready to activate the spacecraft's automatic landing, which will trigger an algorithm that will take over when it reaches a designated location and help it land.
If it lands successfully, Chandrayaan-3 will remain operational for two weeks and conduct a series of experiments, including a spectrometric analysis of the mineral composition of the lunar surface.

"A landing at the south pole (of the moon) would allow India to study whether the moon has water ice. And this is very important for the cumulative knowledge and science of lunar geology," said Carla Filotico, partner and CEO of consulting firm SpaceTec Partners.
Hours before the scheduled landing, the mood in the spacecraft control center on the outskirts of Bengaluru was upbeat as ISRO officials and scientists huddled in front of large, massive screens watching the lander.
The anticipation and excitement of the landing were feverish, with landing timers in the banner headlines of newspapers and news channels.

Prayers were held in all the religions of the country and schoolchildren waved the Indian tricolor in anticipation of the live performances of the landing party.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will watch the landing from South Africa, where he is attending the BRICS summit.