(CNN) India's Chandrayaan-2 spacecraft entered lunar orbit on Tuesday in a small but important step on its journey towards the moon.

Chandrayaan-2 , which means "moon vehicle" in Sanskrit, entered the orbit around midnight Eastern Time in a complicated insertion maneuver that took 29 minutes.

"Our hearts almost stopped today till it completed its job," Kailasavadivoo Sivan, chairman of the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), told reporters at a news conference.

"But still the landing is the terrifying moment... because that is a phase that we are doing for the first time," he added.

If the spacecraft lands successfully, India will become only the fourth country to make a soft landing on the moon, after the United States, the former Soviet Union and China.

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