Russia will launch its first mission to the moon in nearly half a century.

The state-owned Roscosmos space agency will launch Luna-25 on Friday. The small, unmanned space station is expected to land on the moon's south pole on Aug. 23, racing an Indian probe that was sent July 13 but which is expected to land around the same time, the Associated Press reported. The mission intends to study the presence of frozen water on the moon's poles.

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So far, no spacecraft has managed to land smoothly on the moon's poles.

The Soviet Union originally had extensive plans for the moon, with Soviet engineers even designing lunar cities for future colonists, TASS reported. However, after Luna-24 became the first craft to detect ice on the moon's poles in 1976, the Soviets largely abandoned journeys to the moon. Though it landed unmanned craft on the celestial body, the Soviet Union never landed any cosmonauts on it.

Interest in the moon has been renewed by scientific advancements in recent years, leading to an international race to return to the moon. Aside from Russia and the United States, China, Japan, Israel, South Korea, India, and the European Union have all launched moon-related missions. So far, only the U.S. has managed to land people on it.

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Luna-25 will just be the first of several planned missions from Russia. Luna-26, an orbiter, will study the moon's service, focusing on the distribution of ice. Luna-27 will study ice at the moon's south pole, and Luna-28 will deliver ice samples back to Earth.

Luna-25 stands at 10.4 feet tall and weighs 3,858 pounds when filled with fuel.