India's Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft is looking to become the first ever to land on the moon's south pole, just days after a Russian attempt ended in a crash. The region's shadowed craters are believed to contain water ice that could help make a permanent lunar base for humans a reality.
As the failed Russian mission proved, it's extremely difficult.
One of the challenges facing space agencies is the moon's south pole has very rough terrain, with deep trenches and plenty of craters. Chandrayaan-3 was launched with a budget of about 6.15bn rupees , which is also less than sci-fi blockbusters like Gravity and Interstellar. That's right, getting into space these days is cheaper than pretending to get into space.
Sky's science and technology editor Tom Clarke said even for a robotic mission, Chandrayaan-3 was"small change compared to what Western space agencies have spent". Moscow's Luna-25, which like India's Chandrayaan-3 is an unmanned robot lander, had been scheduled to become the first spacecraft to touch down on the south pole of the moon on Monday.
The difficulty of doing so was made clear over the weekend when a Russian craft crashed during its own bid, meaning the door remained open for India to set a new bar for moon exploration.
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