China's historic moon mission is just the start of its plans to dominate space

• China's lunar probe returned to Earth with the first-ever samples from the moon's far side.
• The samples could answer crucial questions about how planets form.

China just took a huge leap forward in its plans to dominate space.

On Tuesday, its Chang'e-6 lunar probe successfully returned to Earth carrying the first-ever samples from the moon's far side.

A video showed an official triumphantly planting a Chinese flag near the capsule in Mongolia after it glided back to our planet by parachute.

The samples, which include 2.5 million-year-old volcanic rock, could answer crucial questions about how planets form, as well as the moon's history.

But they are significant for another reason too.

They signify China's growing prowess in orbit, as well as its potential to someday leapfrog the US in the race to dominate space.

The moon's far side

The moon's far side is considered particularly challenging to explore because of its craters and the difficulty of maintaining communications with vehicles landing there.

China is the only country to have landed in this tricky terrain and returned with samples. The latest mission, which launched on May 3, is China's second successful landing on the moon's far side, with the first launched in 2019.

Overall, it has soft-landed on the moon four times.

The US, meanwhile, has had less luck. In January, Astrobiotic launched a lander into space, with the aim of it being the first American spacecraft to soft land on the moon since the Apollo era.

But its hopes were quickly dashed after a fuel leak caused a failure in the spacecraft's propellant system.

In February, Intuitive Machines, in collaboration with NASA, achieved a first: landing a US commercial spacecraft on the moon without crashing.

But that had complications. As previously reported by Business Insider, when the spacecraft touched down on the moon, it stopped communicating with mission control.

The recent moon-landing scoreboard is "4 to 0.5" in favor of China, Simone Dell'Agnello, a researcher who collaborated with Chang'e 6, told The Wall Street Journal. "The first difference is that China has missions landing on the fucking moon."

The space race heats up

China is now rivaling the US and Russia as a leading space power. It has its own manned space station, Tiangong, and in 2022 became the second country after the US to land a robotic vehicle on the surface of Mars.

Analysts believe that China's leader, Xi Jinping, sees huge economic and military opportunities in space. China is planning to send a crewed flight to the moon by 2030 and build a base at the lunar south pole.

The US is gearing up for its own space exploration missions and has rival plans to land a crewed flight on the moon and build a base.

The head of NASA, Bill Nelson, has said that the US and China are involved in a new "space race" and that China's research missions are being used for covert military activity.

He said that China seems to be accelerating its plans to send a crewed flight to the moon.

"It is incumbent on us to get there first," told Congress in April.

At stake are water supplies scientists believe may be on the moon's far side, which China could claim. These supplies would be vital for establishing a moon base or for further space exploration.

Pentagon officials have warned that China is seeking to potentially disable US satellites if a war breaks out between them.

China has insisted its space program is for the benefit of humanity.

But it's also a race for control of economic resources and military power in the intensifying rivalry between the US and China.