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India's Pragyan rover hours away from Moon's surface

India becomes the fourth country in the world to soft-land a spacecraft on the Moon

NEW DELHI, August 23. /TASS/. The Pragyan rover could land on the surface of the Moon within the next few hours, but it may take up to a day, Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) CEO Sridhara Somanath said.

Earlier on Wednesday, ISRO successfully landed the Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft on the lunar surface. India becomes the fourth country in the world (after the USSR, the US and China) to manage to soft-land a spacecraft on the Moon and it is also the first country to do so in the natural satellite’s South Pole.

"The rover will reach the surface, probably, in the next few hours, it may take a day - it all depends on the conditions," Somanath pointed out.

As ISRO pointed out, the mission of the rover is complicated by the dust that it will raise when it hits the surface. Due to the lack of atmosphere, the particles lifted from the surface disperse slowly and can negatively affect the operation of its equipment.

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Vladimir Putin's visit to China

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