India Lands at Moon’s South Pole as Russia’s Luna 25 Crashes in 2023 Race

1 articles · Updated · spacedaily.com · Aug 11

Chandrayaan-3 reached the lunar south pole days after Russia’s Luna 25 crashed there in August 2023, creating a stark scoreboard in the contest for the Moon’s most valuable terrain.
Nine or so south-pole zones are drawing that competition because they pair near-constant sunlight with shadowed craters believed to hold frozen water, a resource prized for power and rocket fuel.
The legal fight is quieter than the Cold War version: the 1967 Outer Space Treaty bars national claims, but U.S., Luxembourg, Japan, the UAE and India allow companies to keep extracted space resources.
Artemis safety zones and a rival Russia-China framework now point two blocs toward the same coordinates, while China targets a crewed landing by around 2030 and the U.S. South Pole timeline has slipped again.