## 3 Moon Cold Traps Exploration Challenges  
Since a large number of craters occur in the Moon's circumpolar regions and there are Permanently Shadowed Areas (PSR), including water ice deposits, it is not surprising that these areas are currently the subject of the greatest interest when it comes to lunar exploration, especially the southern pole, where the interests of rival global powers such as the USA, China, India, Russia, and the EU intersect. Currently [47], over 250 lunar missions, both commercial and scientific, are planned for the next decade. Given the enormous operational depth of the lunar surface, the bottleneck is the lack of a communication and navigation system for future missions. However, work is underway to solve this problem. ESA is working on the ESA Moonlight communications and navigation constellation [48], which, according to ESA, can activate the development of a space economy worth EUR 100 billion and invites companies to create this system and services based on it. Lockheed Martin, and more specifically Crescent, a company belonging to this concern, is also working on a communication and navigation system called Parsec [49]. Lockheed Martin, together with General Motors [50], is also working on the next generation of lunar rovers. However, commercial exploration of the Moon's south pole will be a great technological challenge. In the Apollo program, humans landed on the Moon in carefully selected locations that were flat, sunny, and close to the equator. Near the equator, the \(\Delta\)v needed [51] to reach these places is the lowest (-850 m/s), while in the case of the poles, \(\Delta\)v is -1200 m/s. Since the amount of energy consumed by a rocket is proportional to the square of the change in its speed \(\Delta\)v, this means that landing in the polar regions will require almost twice as much energy, and therefore more fuel. Another challenge will be large differences in height, which in some lunar craters are greater than even the highest peaks of the Himalayas, as shown in [52] on the example of the Haworth crater (Malapert Massif--height difference from the crater floor of over 8 km) and the Shoemaker crater (Leibnitz Beta--height difference from the crater floor of over 10 km). Moreover, the slopes of craters on the Moon can be steep. All this may prevent the safe entry/exit of an exploration rover to/from the crater, not to mention large mining trucks. There may also be stones and other natural obstacles on the road, making it impassable. The rover will consume more energy when climbing steep slopes, which may lead to premature discharge of its battery. Therefore, you should try to choose a route to and from the crater that would allow the rover to use as little energy as possible, i.e., as short a route as possible, with the lowest possible slope and free from terrain obstacles. Most rovers used for space exploration are powered by photovoltaic cells that charge the batteries on board. There are examples of rovers powered by an RTG (Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator), but these are exceptions rather than the general rule. Moreover, the RTG generates little electricity (about 100 W), although, including the heat generated, its power is significant (about 1 kW). Many problems would be solved by using nuclear reactors. Unfortunately, the EU is very hostile to the use of nuclear energy in space for fear of possible environmental contamination if a rocket carrying radioactive material explodes while flying in the Earth's atmosphere. The USA and the UK have a much more liberal approach to these issues. Already in 2019, former US President [PERSON] [53] signed a memorandum on the use of nuclear energy in space to power devices and rockets. Work on the development of nuclear reactors for space exploration is already underway [54; 55; 56; 57]. However, the use of nuclear reactors on the Moon is limited by their significant size and weight. Moreover, the lack of an atmosphere on the Moon makes it difficult to cool such devices, as they can only transfer heat by radiating it.