India on Wednesday not only completed its first mission to the moon, 54 years after the U.S. first touched down, but it landed on the moon’s south pole—a feat no other country has been able to accomplish.
The mission’s success comes days after a Russian spacecraft crashed into the lunar south pole. The two countries had been racing to put an unmanned spacecraft in that region after scientists discovered traces of water there. The elements of water—hydrogen and oxygen—are essential components to rocket fuel, so harvesting them on the moon could allow spacecrafts to top off their tanks for further exploration, according to the Institute of Physics. The existence of water on the moon could also help sustain astronauts in space for long periods of time, providing a drinking source and supporting the growth of plants for food, it reported. India placed a rover in the region to collect data on the elemental composition of the soil and rocks, according to the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO).
