The Indian Space Research Organisation on Wednesday successfully landed the uncrewed Chandrayaan-3 mission on the rocky surface of the lunar south pole, making India the first country to do so.

“India is now on the moon,” declared India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi via videolink from a summit of global leaders in South Africa.

The landing follows Russia’s dramatic failure to make it there first earlier this week as its Luna-25 probe, launched suddenly this month in an attempt to beat India, crash-landed on Sunday.

Addressing a global audience after the landing was confirmed, Modi said that “India’s successful moon mission is not just India’s alone,” adding that “this success belongs to all of humanity and it will help moon missions by other countries in the future.”

India is now the fourth country to place a spacecraft on the lunar surface after the United States, Soviet Union and China, but the first to do so on the especially treacherous and crater-filled south pole, where scientists believe there’s water.

The presence of ice trapped in rock under the perpetual shade of mountains at the pole makes it the perfect site for a future moon base, and ISRO has been working for years to get a probe there, failing in 2019 with Chandrayaan-2 (“moon vehicle”).

Firming up water reserves is a critical requirement for supporting life on the moon with breathable oxygen, drinking water and even rocket fuel, which would then help space-faring nations further explore the cosmos from any lunar outpost in the future.

“This is just the next step in India’s methodical long-term lunar science program,” said Bleddyn Bowen, an author on outer space and space policy at the University of Leicester. “Whatever prestige and soft power the Indian government will want to draw from this will be contrasted with the dramatic failure of Russia’s Luna-25.”

Despite its sudden launch in early August, Russia’s lander started off on a solid note, successfully launching and quickly catching up to the Chandrayaan-3. But Moscow’s craft plunged into the lunar surface, destroying any chance of scientific gain — and causing experts to wonder if the effort was rushed by the Kremlin.

Russian space agency Roscosmos “must have been pressured by Putin to go before they were ready to beat India and provide him with a success, to signal Russia’s status and competence,” said Peter Garretson, a senior fellow in defense studies at the American Foreign Policy Council and a former Defense Department official.

Because the Luna-25 mission “spectacularly backfired,” Russia’s bargaining power in China’s International Lunar Research Station could diminish, Garretson added.

While India spends significantly less on its space program than the U.S. or China, the successful lunar landing is only the beginning for its orbital ambitions. The country wants to launch its first crewed mission in 2025, called Gaganyaan or “celestial vehicle” in Sanskrit, and has plans to send a research mission to the sun too.

New Delhi has also signed on to the U.S.-drafted Artemis Accords, an aspirational set of rules for space exploration and exploitation of raw materials on the moon.

NASA administrator Bill Nelson, who met with Indian officials earlier this year to secure the partnership on the accords, congratulated India on its ability to “successfully soft-land a spacecraft on the Moon.”

“Chandrayaan-3 … gives India a head start in developing the infrastructure and technology needed to mine these resources,” said Shri Charan Padala, from consultancy GlobalData. “If India can overcome the challenges of lunar mining, it could become a major player in this emerging industry.”

The successful landing could be viewed as the “crowning moment” of India’s space program so far, said Benjamin Silverstein, a research analyst for the Space Project at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

“This is something that nobody has done,” he said. “India has demonstrated that not only can they do it in a very cost-effective manner, they’ve demonstrated that they can do something new and different. No one’s done it because it’s hard.”

While India beat Russia’s craft to the surface, Silverstein emphasized that Indian space observers weren’t jumping with joy when Luna-25 crashed. The field is relatively collegial, he said, and both missions had scientific aspirations. 

“Our hearts go out to people whose entire careers went into the Luna project have to end on this sour note.”