With its latest moon mission success, China's space program has the US in its sights

June 25 2024 marked a new "first" in the history of spaceflight. China's robotic Chang'e 6 spacecraft delivered samples of rock back to Earth from a huge feature on the moon called the south pole–Aitken basin. After touching down on the moon's "far side," on the southern rim of the Apollo crater, Chang'e 6 came back with around 1.9kg of rock and soil, according to the China National Space Administration (CNSA).