NASA‘s Mars science rover Perseverance has collected and stashed away the first of numerous mineral samples that the US space agency hopes to retrieve from the surface of the Red Planet for analysis on Earth.

Tools attached to Perseverance and operated by mission specialists from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) near Los Angeles drilled a rock core slightly thicker than a pencil from an ancient Martian lake bed, then hermetically sealed it in a titanium specimen tube inside the rover.

The feat, accomplished on September 1 and publicly confirmed by NASA late on Monday, marked the first such mineral sample obtained from the surface of another planet, according to the space agency.

NASA chief and former astronaut Bill Nelson hailed it as “a momentous achievement.”

The space agency plans to collect as many as 43 mineral samples over the next few months from the floor of Jerezo Crater, a wide basin where scientists think water flowed and microbial life may have flourished billions of years ago.

The six-wheeled, SUV-sized vehicle is also expected to explore walls of sediment deposited at the foot of a remnant river delta once etched into a corner of the crater and considered a prime spot for study.