India on Sunday will attempt to become the fourth country to land on the moon.

The mission, Chandrayaan-2, which means "moon vehicle" in Sanskrit, will send a rover to collect samples from the surface of the moon and monitor seismic activity.

The first generation of India's moon mission sent a different spacecraft, Chandrayaan-1, orbiting around the moon in 2008, but it did not land.

According to the Department of Space in India's Space Research Organization , the country would be the first to reach the lunar south pole, which is believed to host reservoirs of ice. It is also the destination of the U.S.'s Artemis mission to the moon in 2024.

India would join the U.S., China and the former Soviet Union on the list of countries that have completed a "soft" moon landing, or a touchdown that doesn't result in a crash landing. The U.S. is the only country to have completed successful manned missions to the moon.

Earlier this year India made headlines when it shot down its own satellite with a rocket, sending debris around the International Space Station. The country said that its ability to perform an anti-satellite test would protect its interests in space, but it also added that it has "no intention" of entering into an arms race in space.

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India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweeted that the satellite mission was a "highly complex one, conducted at extremely high speed with remarkable precision. It shows the remarkable dexterity of India's outstanding scientists and the success of our space programme."

India intends to ramp up its presence in space in the near future. It plans to send three astronauts into Earth's orbit for seven days by 2022, and it also hopes to set up its own space station by 2030.

"We want our space station to be very small" and to be "used to carry out microgravity experiments," Kailasavadivoo Sivan, chairman of the Indian Space Research Organization, said last month.