NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter became the first aircraft in history to make a powered, controlled flight on another planet earlier today. This tiny solar-powered helicopter lifted off at 3:34 a.m. EDT (12:34 a.m. PDT) when the Ingenuity team determined that it would have optimal energy and flight conditions.

It achieved a maximum altitude of 10-feet and maintained a stable hover for 30 seconds before descending and touching back down on the surface of Mars after logging a total of 39.1 seconds of flight. Read more for the video and additional information.

The flight was completely autonomous, as the on-board guidance, navigation, and control systems running algorithms developed by the team at JPL, handled the hover.

This was partially due to data having to be sent to and returned from Mars hundreds of millions of miles using orbiting satellites and NASA’s Deep Space Network, which meant flying it with a joystick was not an option as well as not being able to observe it from Earth in real time.