An Indian spacecraft built at a cost of only US$75 million successfully entered Mars' orbit at 7:17 a.m. Indian Standard Time on Sept. 24.

With this historic achievement, India became the first nation on Earth to successfully send a spacecraft to Mars on its first attempt.

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The Mars Orbiter Mission or MOM is India's first spacecraft targeted at Mars and India's first interplanetary mission.

The spacecraft, which is also called "Mangalyaan," meaning "Mars craft" in Hindi, is meant to showcase India's ability to design, plan, manage and operate a deep-space mission.

Confidence the spacecraft will enter Mars orbit was buoyed by the successful crucial test firing of MOM's main liquid engine on Sept. 22.

This test fire confirmed MOM's operational readiness for the critical Mars Orbital Insertion (MOI) engine firing on Wednesday morning, Sept. 24. The MOI was sucessfully accomplished, placing MOM in Martian orbit.

The Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) which designed and developed MOM, successfully fired the spacecraft's 440 Newton Liquid Apogee Motor (LAM) on Sept. 22 for 3.968 seconds at 1430 hours, Indian Standard Time.

"We had a perfect burn for four seconds as programmed. MOM will now go-ahead with the nominal plan for Mars Orbital Insertion," said ISRO in a statement.

Reaching Mars orbit will be a huge milestone for India's growing space program and will prove to the world India is capable of complex interplanetary missions.

"We have to excel," said ISRO chief K. Radhakrishnan.

If the 1,350 kilogram spacecraft successfully orbits on Wednesday as planned, India will join the U.S., the European Space Agency and the former Soviet Union in the elite club of Martian explorers.

China has never had a successful Mars mission. The first Chinese mission to Mars called Yinghuo-1 failed in 2011. India and China are locked in a new Space Race to become Asia's dominant space power.

"The spacecraft (MOM) is healthy. It has completed 98 percent of its journey to Mars," Radhakrishnan said.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will personally witness the satellite's final insertion into orbit from ISRO's command center in Bangalore.

Once in Martian orbit, MOM will join NASA's Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution mission, or Maven, which reached began orbiting Mars on Sept. 20.

Maven's chief investigator, Bruce Jakosky of the University of Colorado, said the U.S. team is rooting for the Indian mission.

"We're sending them the best wishes from the entire Maven team," he said.

MOM's scientific goals include gathering data to help determine how Martian weather systems work and to find out what happened to the water believed to have once existed  in large quantities on Mars. It also will scour Mars for methane.

MOM is expected to circle Mars for at least six months. It will enter an elliptical orbit that brings it within 365 kilometers of Mars' surface at its closest and 80,000 kilometers at its farthest.

In 2008, India successfully launched the lunar orbiter Chandrayaan-1 that discovered key evidence of water on the Moon.