The first landing near the south pole

India put Vikram down at 69° south, closer to the lunar pole than anything had landed before, four days after a Russian attempt at the same region crashed.

The south pole is the target everyone wants because the crater floors there have never seen sunlight and are thought to hold water ice. It is also the hardest place to land: the Sun sits on the horizon, so the shadows are enormous and a slope reads to a camera much like a cliff. India became the fourth country to land on the Moon at all, and named the site Statio Shiv Shakti; 23 August is now National Space Day.