India's Chandrayaan-3 becomes the first ever to land on the moon's south pole

India has become the first nation to land a lunar vehicle on the moon’s south pole.

Six weeks after it launched, the unmanned Chandrayaan-3, touched down near an area thought to be rich with ice water.

At 6:04 pm India time (2.34pm in Malta) mission control technicians cheered and embraced each other after the vehicle landed, three days after a similar Russian attempt crashed.

In a live broadcast, Prime Minister Narendra Modi smiled broadly while waving an Indian flag.

"On this joyous occasion I would like to address the people of the world," Modi said, "India's successful moon mission is not just India's alone."

With mountainous terrain, craters and dips, the south of the moon is the hardest to land on. Infact India had tried twice already, with Chandrayaan-1 and 2 failing to land in 2008 and 2019.

Chandrayaan-3 even took longer to reach the Moon than the Apollo missions in the 1960s and 1970s, due to the use of much less powerful rockets than the ones the United States used back then.

Compared to both the United States and Russia, this South Asian nation has a comparatively low-budget space programme.

In 2014, India became the first Asian nation to put a craft into orbit around Mars and is slated to launch a three-day crewed mission into Earth's orbit by next year.