Mission to the Moon: Who will win Russian and India's race to the lunar South Pole?

Right now, a mini space race is afoot. Two spacecraft, one Russian and the other Indian, are headed for the South Pole of the Moon – where no lander has ever successfully gone before. The Russian and Indian vehicles are on competing quests to search for water ice and potentially useful minerals that might be tucked away in the lunar dust.

Such was the timing of the crafts' departures that they are due to reach their destinations around the same date. No one planned this showdown, it is simply a curious twist of fate – but one that has got the world watching, and wondering: who will get there first?