The original article:
"This is the first of many missions planned for the south pole. India’s Chandrayaan-3 will attempt to land in the region on 23 August. China plans to send a rover there in 2026, and NASA’s Artemis programme, which will attempt to return humans to the Moon for the first time since Apollo 17 in 1972, is also focusing on the south pole. As part of Artemis, several US companies are set to attempt landings there in the coming years."
Is it a race for resources?
China,
"China is going to mine the Moon for helium-3 fusion fuel
China's space program has been steadily marching towards its goals. Its recent Chang'e 3 mission was only to take spectrographic and ground penetrating radar
measurements, but this year's Chang'e 5 missions will bring back the first samples containing the actual prize -- fusion-ready helium-3.
One of the main reasons helium-3 is sought as a fusion fuel is because there are no neutrons generated as a reaction product. The protons that do get generated have charge, and can therefore be safely contained using electromagnetic fields. Early dreamers imagined that Saturn or Jupiter would be the ideal places to try and get their hands on some helium-3, but it now appears that the Chinese have set their sights on the Moon."
https://www.extremetech.com/defense/197784-china-is-going-to-mine-the-moon-for-helium-3-fusion-fuel
