Russia's Luna-25 moon lander suffers 'emergency situation' in lunar orbit

[Admin]

Russia's Luna-25 moon lander suffered 'an emergency situation' during a maneuver in lunar orbit today (Aug. 19), putting the fate of the landmark mission in doubt.

Russia's Luna-25 moon lander suffers 'emergency situation' in lunar orbit : Read more

 

[Apollo11JVM]

Landing on Lunar surface is the most complex task in the entire journey. And yet we (USA) have mastered it and done it, with humans on board, multiple times! And that was over 54 years ago! As a contributor to Apollo 11 project, I am so proud of our unique accomplishment! This Russian Luna25 seems to have failed during landing an object, not a human. They have a long way to catch up with us.

 

[Unclear Engineer]

Setting aside the politics, I note in the story carried on a competing website that

"The targeted landing site is near the Boguslawsky crater at approximately 70 degrees south latitude in the south polar region of the moon."

That does not seem like "near the south pole" to me. Is that lunar latitude correct for that crater? Is so, is that close enough to the pole to expect water ice in areas that never see sunlight?

I got the impression that the Artemis landing areas would be much closer to the pole. There have been articles about how being at the pole could provide constant sunlight for solar cells, etc. instead of 2 weeks of darkness per month.

So, how do the landing sites for the Russian, Indian and Artemis projects compare?