A NASA spacecraft yoinked some dust and pebbles off the surface of an asteroid on Tuesday night, after orbiting the ancient space rock for nearly two years. 

The achievement marks the first time that an American space probe has collected material from an asteroid and puts the mission on track to return the valuable sample to Earth in three years.

Launched in 2016, NASA's Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security, Regolith Explorer, or OSIRIS-REx, reached its target, an asteroid named Bennu, in 2018.