[caption id="attachment_818" align="alignleft" width="1240"] The Indian space agency’s third lunar exploration mission, Chandrayaan-3, on a launch pad in Andhra Pradesh state. Photograph: Indian Space Research Organisation/EPA[/caption] The final preparations have been made by India's space agency for the launch of a rocket that will try to land a rover on the moon and establish the nation as a major player in space research. China, the former Soviet Union, and the United States are the only countries to have successfully landed on the moon. A Japanese start-up's earlier this year attempt failed when the lander crashed. Built on a budget of just under $75m, the Chandrayaan-3 is set to blast off from India’s main spaceport in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh at 2.35pm local time (0905 GMT) on Friday. If everything goes to plan, the 43.5-metre LVM3 launch rocket will blast the spacecraft into an elliptical Earth orbit before it loops towards the moon for a scheduled landing around 23 August. The spacecraft would be the first to land at the lunar south pole, an area of special interest for space agencies and private space companies because of the presence of water ice that could support a future space station. The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) said it had completed a review of mission readiness ahead of the scheduled launch, adding on Friday morning that it had completed fuelling in the rocket’s core and had begun filling propellant in its upper stage. Several ISRO scientists were shown in footage by Indian news agency ANI taking a handheld model of the Chandrayaan-3 to a popular temple in southern India on Thursday to seek blessings ahead of liftoff. The launch is the country’s first major mission since the government of Narendra Modi, the prime minister, announced policies to spur investment in private space launches and related satellite-based businesses. Chandrayaan, which means “moon vehicle” in Sanskrit, includes a 2-metre tall lander designed to deploy a rover near the lunar south pole, where it is expected to remain functional for two weeks running a series of experiments. But analysts say the launch also has a secondary mission: signalling India is open for business in the accelerating private-sector space race. “A successful mission will add to India’s global stature and bring indirect benefits on the commercial aspect of the industry,” said Ajey Lele, a consultant at New Delhi’s Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses. ISRO’s Chandrayaan-2 mission in 2020 successfully deployed an orbiter but its lander and rover were destroyed in a crash near where the Chandrayan-3 will attempt a touchdown. Since 2020, when India opened to private launches, the number of space startups has more than doubled. Late last year, Skyroot Aerospace, whose investors include Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund GIC, launched India’s first privately built rocket. On a visit to the US last month, Modi and President Joe Biden pledged to deepen collaboration in space.