"History has been created today," says Indian prime minister Narendra Modi. "We have dared to reach out into the unknown and have achieved the near-impossible. I congratulate all ISRO scientists as well as all my fellow Indians on this historic occasion."

Engineers and scientists in MOM's mission control center in Bangalore are all smiles, exchanging handshakes after the craft's historic arrival at Mars.

Mission control reports the Mars Orbiter Mission is in orbit around Mars!

After the conclusion of the burn, the Mars orbiter was supposed to turn back toward Earth and radio its status to mission control.

Antennas from NASA's Deep Space Network, a range of antennas located in California, Spain and Australia, will be listening for signals from the MOM spacecraft when it appears from behind Mars.

The spacecraft should have completed its burn by now and be in orbit around Mars. But the challenges of interplanetary spaceflight mean confirmation of this event won't come for another 18 minutes.

It takes 12 minutes for MOM to send signals back to Earth, and the probe is also on the opposite side of Mars as viewed from Earth, restricting communications with the craft.

As expected, the Mars Orbiter Mission spacecraft is now out of communications with Earth as it is flying on the opposite side of Mars, which blocks its radio signals. Confirmation of a good burn is not expected until 0230 GMT (10:30 p.m. EDT).

Ground controllers have confirmed a good start to the 24-minute orbit insertion burn, prompting a loud round of applause in the control center in Bangalore.

The spacecraft is executing the Mars arrival sequence autonomously. The commands were uploaded to the probe previously.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is viewing the Mars arrival operations at ISRO's control center in Bangalore.

Flying over the night side of Mars, the spacecraft's 100-pound-thrust main engine should now be firing, but we won't know if the burn started for 12-and-a-half minutes because of the 139 million miles separating Earth and Mars.

The Mars Orbiter Mission's control center in Bangalore confirms the spacecraft started its maneuver to the correct orientation for the start of the orbit insertion burn.

India's Mars mission is seeking to become the second spacecraft to enter orbit around the red planet this week. NASA's MAVEN atmospheric research orbiter arrived Sunday night.

The MOM spacecraft's orbit insertion burn is expected to last 24 minutes and 14 seconds. It will slow down the probe's velocity by 1,098 meters per second, or about 2,457 mph, enough for Martian gravity to capture it in orbit.

The burn of the craft's main engine will consumed nearly 250 kilograms, or about 550 pounds, of propellant. The probe is aiming for an orbit around Mars with a low point of 423 kilometers, or 263 miles, and a high point of 80,000 kilometers, or about 49,700 miles.

It take MOM about 3.2 days to complete one orbit around Mars.

Follow along with the critical events during MOM's orbit insertion maneuver with a minute-by-minute timeline.

The MOM spacecraft should be about to start its maneuver to the proper orientation for the orbit insertion burn. It will take more than 12 minutes for confirmation to reach Earth.

The live webcast of the Mars Orbiter Mission's arrival at the red planet begins at 0115 GMT (9:15 p.m. EDT).

The planned 24-minute burn of the probe's 100-pound-thrust engine, along with eight secondary thrusters, will begin at 0147 GMT (9:47 p.m. EDT), but controllers on Earth won't receive confirmation of the start of the burn until about 0200 GMT (10 p.m. EDT).

The Indian Space Research Organization test fired the orbiter's main engine Monday to verify its readiness for tonight's crucial burn. It fired for nearly 4 seconds, nudging the probe onto the correct trajectory and setting up for tonight's maneuver.

India's first Mars-bound spacecraft is set to go into orbit around the red planet late Tuesday, the final act in a nearly year-long cruise through interplanetary space that began last November.

If the probe arrives successfully, India's space agency will become the fourth entity to have a mission reach Mars. The United States, Russia and the European Space Agency have already done it.

Indian engineers programmed the spacecraft to fire its main engine and eight smaller thrusters for 24 minutes, starting at 0147 GMT (9:47 p.m. EDT).

Confirmation of the start of the burn will come nearly 13 minutes later, when radio signals from the probe reach Earth.

The spacecraft will fly behind Mars during the insertion maneuver, so ground controllers will be blind to the status of the burn for much of the rocket firing.

The first telemetry from the orbiter confirming the completion of the critical rocket burn should arrive on Earth at about 0230 GMT (10:30 p.m. EDT).

The Mars Orbiter Mission, developed in less than two years for about $72 million, blasted off Nov. 5, 2013, aboard an Indian Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle.

The MOM spacecraft did not launch directly toward Mars. Its rocket booster put the probe into orbit around Earth, then the craft fired its main engine to break free of Earth's gravity and fly to the red planet.

Operating from a perch taking the spacecraft from just above the Martian atmosphere to a peak altitude of nearly 50,000 miles, the Mars probe will survey the planet with five science instruments, gathering data on the history of the Martian climate and the mineral make-up of its surface.

The mission carries a color imaging camera to return medium-resolution pictures of the Martian surface, a thermal infrared spectrometer to measure the chemical composition of the surface, and instruments to assess the Mars atmosphere, including a methane detector.

Scientific assessments of methane in the Martian atmosphere have returned mixed results.

Methane is a potential indicator of current microbial life on Mars, but some types of geologic activity can also produce trace levels of the gas.

Following up on detections from ground-based telescopes and Europe's Mars Express orbiter, NASA's Curiosity rover measured no methane in the Martian atmosphere when it sucked air into its internal instrument suite on several occasions since landing in August 2012.

But the mission's primary objective is not scientific; it is technological.

India has never sent a spacecraft as deep into space as the Mars Orbiter Mission.

Indian engineers added autonomous capabilities to the spacecraft to account for the communications lag between Earth and Mars. The probe is designed to detect faults and put itself into safe mode if something goes wrong, a feature officials say will ensure the spacecraft is in a stable configuration while ground controllers resolve problems.

In an effort to reduce the risk of a long-distance mission to Mars, engineers authored new software code and added redundant components to the probe's propulsion system to ensure it would survive the 10-month cruise and still function for the make-or-break orbit insertion burn.

NASA is helping India with navigation and communications support from experts at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which oversees all of the U.S. missions currently at Mars.

NASA's Deep Space Network antennas will track the Indian probe during Tuesday's orbit insertion maneuver and the science mission, helping Indian engineers and scientists collect telemetry on the spacecraft's health and reap the benefits of its scientific data.