The Indian Space Research Organization chairman Kailasavadivoo Sivan said the country will move ahead with a new space mission to the moon despite a failed attempt in 2019.

The Chandrayaan-3 space mission, set to take place no later than early 2021, will include an upgraded space vehicle with a new propulsion module, moon lander and rover, Sivan said on Wednesday.

India will be trying to become the fourth country to make a "soft landing" on the moon, behind the United States, the former Soviet Union and China.

The unmanned lunar landing is part of India's bigger goal of launching its own astronauts into space by 2022.

India's Minister of State Jitendra Singh said India gathered a great deal of information from the Chandrayaan-2 mission that will help it in the space agency's upcoming mission.

"Yes, the lander and rover mission will most likely happen in 2020," Singh said. "However, as I have said before, the Chandrayaan-2 mission cannot be called a failure as we have learned a lot from it.

"There is no country in the world that has landed on its first attempt. The U.S. took several attempts. But we will not need so many attempts."

India already has scored a number of firsts for Asian nations. It became the first to reach Mars in 2014 when it placed one of its probes in orbit around Earth's neighbor. India then put a record of 104 satellites in space on one mission.

The country then touted its space defense capabilities when it announced in 2019 that it shot down one of its own satellites as a test of the anti-satellite protocol.

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