The Indian Space Research Organisation on Thursday said that Chandrayaan-3’s Vikram lander has successfully separated itself from the spacecraft.

The Vikram lander will now attempt to soft-land on the South Pole region of the moon on August 23. The lander is carrying a rover module, named Pragyan, that can travel short distances on the moon’s surface and study its environment.

According to the Indian Space Research Organisation, the spacecraft, which now consists of only the propulsion module, will continue to orbit around on Earth’s lone natural satellite for months or even years.

The space agency said that the equipment on the spacecraft would perform a spectroscopy of the Earth’s atmosphere, measure the variations in polarisation from the clouds on the planet and accumulate signatures of exoplanets that would qualify for habitability.

Spectroscopy is the study of emission of absorption of light and other radiations.

The Chandrayaan-3 had made a successful lift off from the Satish Dhawan Space Center in Sriharikota on July 14.

This is India’s second mission to attempt a soft launch to the moon. In 2019, the Chandrayaan-2 had mission failed in the last leg. Chandrayaan-2’s Vikram lander had attempted a soft landing on the moon on September 7 but lost communication with ISRO minutes before touchdown. Its debris were strewn across about 750 metres of the crash site.

A successful soft landing on the moon would make India the fourth country to achieve this feat after the United States, the erstwhile Soviet Union and China.