A Chinese spacecraft has landed on the far side of the moon to collect rocks in light of the growing space competition with the United States

BEIJING — A Chinese spacecraft touched down on the far side of the moon on Sunday to collect soil and rock samples that could provide insight into the differences between the less-explored region and the more famous near side.

The China National Space Administration said the lander landed at 6:23 a.m. Beijing time in a huge crater known as the Antarctica-Aitken Basin.

This mission is the sixth in the Chang’e lunar exploration program, named after the Chinese moon goddess. This is the second designed to return samples, after Chang’e 5, which did so from the near side in 2020.

The moon program is part of a growing rivalry with the United States – which remains a leader in space exploration – and others, including… Japan And India. China has put its own space station in orbit and regularly sends crews there.

The emerging global power aims to send a human to the moon before 2030, making it the second country after the United States to do so. America is planning to land astronauts on the moon again – for the first time in more than 50 years – although NASA pushed back the target date to 2026 earlier this year.

US efforts to use private rockets to launch spacecraft have been repeatedly delayed. A last-minute computer problem forced the cancellation of the scheduled launch of Boeing’s first astronaut flight on Saturday.

Earlier on Saturday, a Japanese billionaire canceled his plan to orbit the moon due to uncertainty over the development of a massive rocket by SpaceX. NASA plans to use the rocket to send its astronauts to the moon.

On the current China mission, the lander will use a mechanical arm and auger to collect up to 4.4 pounds of surface and subterranean material over about two days.

Then, an ascender atop the lander will take the samples in a metal vacuum container to another module orbiting the moon. The container will be transferred to a reentry capsule that is scheduled to return to Earth in the deserts of China’s Inner Mongolia region around June 25.

Journeys to the far side of the Moon are more difficult because it is not facing Earth, requiring a satellite to maintain communications. The terrain is also more rugged, with less flat areas of land.

The Antarctic-Aitken Basin, an impact crater that formed more than 4 billion years ago, is 8 miles deep and 1,500 miles in diameter, according to a report from China’s Xinhua News Agency.

Xinhua said that it is the oldest and largest crater on the surface of the moon, so it may provide the first information about it, adding that the huge impact may have led to the ejection of materials from deep within the surface.