Photos: India blasts Chandrayaan-3 lander toward moon's south pole

India's space agency launched a rocket on Friday that sent a spacecraft into orbit and toward a planned landing next month on the lunar south pole, an unprecedented feat that would advance India's position as a major space power.

The Indian Space Research Organisation's (ISRO) LVM3 launch rocket blasted off from the country's main spaceport in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh on Friday afternoon, leaving behind a plume of smoke and fire.

About 16 minutes later, ISRO's mission control announced that the rocket had succeeded in putting the Chandrayaan-3 lander into an Earth orbit that will send it looping toward a moon landing next month.

Applause and cheers swept through mission control at Satish Dhawan Space Center (pictured), where the Indian Space Research Organization’s engineers and scientists celebrated as they monitored the launch of the spacecraft.

Thousands of Indians cheered outside the mission control center and waved the national flag as they watched the spacecraft rise into the sky.

A successful landing would make India the fourth country — after the United States, the Soviet Union, and China — to achieve the feat.

Spectators gather in large numbers to witness the launch of the Chandrayaan-3 mission from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre, in Sriharikota.

The six-wheeled lander and rover module of Chandrayaan-3 is configured with payloads that would provide data to the scientific community on the properties of lunar soil and rocks, including chemical and elemental compositions, said Dr. Jitendra Singh, India's junior minister for Science and Technology.

Employees of Heavy Engineering Corporation (HEC), who prepared the launch pad for the Chandrayaan-3, showing victory signs during the celebration after the success of the Chandrayaan-3 Moon mission launch from Andhra Pradesh's Sriharikota , at Dhurwa, in Ranchi on Friday.

“Chandrayaan-3 scripts a new chapter in India’s space odyssey. It soars high, elevating the dreams and ambitions of every Indian,” Indian PM Narendra Modi said in a tweet after the launch.

Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) Chairman S Somanath along with scientists at the launch of Chandrayaan 3 Moon mission, in Sriharikota on Friday.

The Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft would also 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.

School students react as they watch a live stream of the launch of Chandrayaan-3 lander by Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), inside an auditorium of Gujarat Science City in Ahmedabad.

Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) launches Chandrayaan-3 mission from Satish Dhawan Space Centre, in Sriharikota on Friday.

Students of Valliammal College for Women hold placards giving best wishes to ISRO during the countdown for the launch of Chandrayaan-3, in Chennai.

Chandrayaan, which means "moon vehicle" in Sanskrit, includes a 2-metre-(6.6-foot)-tall lander designed to deploy a rover near the moon's south pole, where it is expected to remain functional for two weeks running a series of experiments.

The lunar landing is expected on August 23, ISRO has said.