the first spacecraft to land near the Moon's south pole
I'm having trouble finding specifics of the Russian "landing" - any chance they're gonna come out and claim they made it to the South Pole first or did they miss entirely?
There's plenty of articles about Russia's failed moon landing.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-02659-6
https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/20/world/luna-25-spacecraft-moon-collision-intl/index.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/20/science/russia-moon-space-crash.html
Yeah, I didn't say I couldn't find articles about the landing; it's been all over Lemmy. My issue is that I couldn't find anything specific to where the lander crashed, if it even reached anywhere near the South Pole.
None of the articles you linked indicate where the lander crashed. They acknowledge it was headed for the South Pole, “switched to an off-design orbit”, and crashed into the Moon.
Is there any breakdown of the mission somewhere? All I can find is "they are looking for water". But what are they actually doing? Scoop things up from the surface? Drill? What kind of instruments do they use? Spectroscopy? Chemical tests?
Hopefully they can finally prove the existence of moon penguins.
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
