China may be a bit too late to participate in the space race, but according to a new report from the Telegraph, the country’s newfound interest in space travel and exploration has still been enough to net it only the third “soft landing” on the surface of the Moon. Previously, that particularly space-bound benchmark had only been achieved by the United States and Russia (or rather, the former Soviet Union). A “soft landing” is any landing in space travel that does not result in the destruction of the space craft. In other words, it’s the opposite of a crash landing.

The accomplishment was notched by an unmanned spacecraft called the “Chang’e-3,” which launched from a Chinese aircraft base on December 2 and began descending toward the lunar surface late last night. The Chang’e-3 was carrying a lunar rover called the “Yutu” (or the “Jade Rabbit,” in English) which has now been released on the Moon into a region known as “the Bay of Rainbows.”

The Jade Rabbit rover is a six-wheeled buggy not unlike some of the robots that the United States and NASA currently have deployed on the surface of Mars. Chinese space agency specialists have told the media the the robot is incredibly efficient and intuitive. It will explore the Bay of Rainbows, take pictures, and collect samples of the lunar surface soil. The goal of mission is “to survey the moon’s geological structure and surface substances and look for natural resources.” The exploration will go on for the next three months.

The rover will help China make leaps and bounds in its research of extraterrestrial surfaces, but the biggest accomplishment of the Jade Rabbit mission will remain the successful soft landing of the Chang’e-3. Now that the nation has completed a soft landing with a robot, it will likely set its sights on landing a human astronaut on the surface of the Moon. Some say that China could be placing its flag in the lunar surface as soon as 2020.

Since NASA doesn’t currently have the technology to support a manned expedition to the Moon, the United States stands to lose its once-prominent leadership role in space travel matters, with the emerging superpower that is China taking the lead. Part of it is a difference in goals. NASA has focused most of its recent efforts on exploring Mars and trying to determine what happened to the atmosphere that made it habitable thousands of years ago. China, meanwhile, is aiming for a frontier that Americans have already conquered, perhaps with the goal of establishing Moon-based colonies sometime in the not-so-distant future.