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A Chinese spacecraft landed 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 better-known nearby country.

The lander touched down at 6:23 a.m. Beijing time in a huge crater known as the South Pole-Aitken Basin, the China National Space Administration said.

The mission is the sixth in the Chang’e lunar exploration program, which is named after a Chinese moon goddess. It 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 US – still the leader in space exploration – and others including Japan and India. China has put its own space station into orbit and regularly sends crews there.

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

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

Earlier on Saturday, a Japanese billionaire scrapped his plan to orbit the moon amid uncertainty over SpaceX’s development of a mega rocket. NASA plans to use the rocket to send its astronauts to the moon.

In China’s current mission, the lander must use a mechanical arm and drill to collect up to 2 kilograms (4.4 pounds) of surface and subsurface material in about two days.

An apparatus atop the lander will then take the samples in a metal vacuum container back to another module orbiting the moon. The container will be transferred to a re-entry capsule that is due to return to Earth in the deserts of China’s Inner Mongolia region around June 25.

Missions to the far side of the Moon are more difficult because it does not face Earth, requiring a relay satellite to maintain communications. The terrain is also more rugged, with less flat landing areas.

The South Pole-Aitken Basin, an impact crater created more than 4 billion years ago, is 13 kilometers (8 miles) deep and 2,500 kilometers (1,500 miles) in diameter, according to a report by China’s Xinhua news agency.

It is the oldest and largest of such craters on the moon, so it may provide the earliest information about it, Xinhua said, adding that the huge impact may have ejected materials deep below the surface.