India's Chandrayaan-3 Moon mission blasts off

The Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft has taken off from the Sriharikota space centre in India to investigate a rarely explored part of the Moon.

Its mission is to be the first craft to land near the Moon's south pole.

If successful, it will be only the fourth country to make a soft landing on the Moon, along with the US, the former Soviet Union and China.

A soft landing is when the spacecraft touches down without causing too much damage.

The spacecraft blasted off at 09:05 BST and is predicted to reach the Moon on 23 or 24 August- more than a month later.

India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi said Chandrayaan-3 "soars high, elevating the dreams and ambitions of every Indian. This momentous achievement is a testament to our scientists' relentless dedication. I salute their spirit and ingenuity".

Chandrayaan-3 has three main parts, the propulsion, lander and rover.

The lander is a protective outer shell and has been named Vikram after the founder of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO).

It weighs about 1,500kg - that's about the same as 10 panda bears - and houses the rover in its belly.

The rover is a small mobile robot that scientists send to moons and planets to land on their surfaces and explore.

It's relatively light, weighing in at 26kg and is called Pragyaan - the Sanskrit word for wisdom.

The spacecraft's propulsion system is made up of engines and thrusters.

India's first mission was all the way back in 2008, called… you guessed it Chandrayaan-1.

The project was considered a success and made 3,400 orbits around the moon.

The mission ended in 2009 when communication with the spacecraft was lost, according to the ISRO.

That mission carried out "the first and most detailed search for water on the lunar surface and established the Moon has an atmosphere during daytime", said Mylswamy Annadurai, project director of Chandrayaan-1.

In 2019, India launched Chandrayaan-2 but the lander-rover crashed while landing on the Moon.

Researchers at the ISRO hope these missions will help us to learn more about the Moon, possibly with a view to helping people live there one day.

"If we want to develop the Moon as an outpost, a gateway to deep space, then we need to carry out many more explorations to see what sort of habitat we would be able to build there with the locally-available material and how will we carry supplies to our people there," Mr Annadurai said.