India is getting ready to launch a spacecraft tomorrow that will attempt to orbit the planet Mars. They will join the ranks of top tier space explorers like the U.S., Russia and Europe if the launch is successful. China and Japan have made attempts to launch Mars exploration orbiters with no success.

The Mars Orbiter Mission probe, also called Mangalyaan, will take 11 months to traverse the 140 million miles of deep space to reach the red planet, all the while gathering data for future space missions. India prides itself on its space program as a symbol of modernity, according to the Washington Post.

The probe will work to identify geological and weather patterns of Mars, including looking for possible signs of life such as methane gas and where the water that used to permeate the Martian surface has gone, as reported by ABC News.

"There's this geostrategic space race in Asia, where China has the clear lead, and India has been more or less desperately searching for what it can be the first to discover or the first to accomplish," Joan Johnson-Freese told NPR.

India is not able to keep up financially with the 3 big space power houses, or even China, but they are able to keep moving forward in functional scientific inquiry through practical space exercises.

"It cannot expect to match China mission for mission. But it can develop a solid technical competency in space activities that will help its economy, military, and scientific potential," Professor James Moltz told Bloomburg.