As part of the mission, a Russian spacecraft with Chinese technology will land on Mars' moon Phobos. The heavily cratered, asteroid-like moon is just 27 km across and orbits Mars every 8 hours.

Credit: NASA

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BEIJING: China will launch a joint mission with Russia to Mars in 2009, marking "an important milestone" in space cooperation between the two countries.

A small Chinese satellite will take off on a Russian rocket, according to the agreement signed this week between the China National Space Administration and the Russian Federal Space Agency, the Chinese space body said.

The agreement, signed during an ongoing three-day visit to Russia by Chinese President Hu Jintao, follows pledges by Moscow in recent months to work closely with Beijing on exploration of both Mars and the Moon.

"This is an important milestone in Sino-Russian space cooperation," the Chinese space administration said in a statement as it unveiled the details of the Mars mission on Wednesday.

According to the agreement, a small satellite developed by China will be launched along with Russia's Phobos Explorer spacecraft, probably in October 2009.

After entering Mars' orbit, 10 to 11 months later, the Chinese satellite will then detach from the spacecraft and probe the Martian space environment, the statement said.

The Phobos Explorer, carrying equipment partly developed by the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, would land on Phobos, a Martian moon, and return to Earth with soil samples, according to the administration.

Phobos is one of a pair of moons that orbits Mars, and is thought to be a captured asteroid. Experts believe that gravitational pull will eventually send it careering into the Martian surface, though that may not occur for many millions of years.

The trip to the Red Planet could be a case of Chinese money mixing with Russian science, according to observers.

"No one has more experience in space exploration than the Russians, and there's no question that their technology is far ahead of China's," commented astronomer Tong Huiquan at the Nanchang Institute of Technology in eastern China. "But China's economy is doing better than Russia's, and China can provide Russia with some economic assistance, so it's fair to say it's a win-win situation."

The state-owned China Daily newspaper suggested the mission was of scientific value, as it would yield information on the origins of the Solar System and Earth. Even so, many observers have seen China's revived interest in space more as a reflection of its aspirations to being a great power, and a source of national pride.

"Our national strength has risen," said Zhang Ming, an astronomer at eastern China's Nanjing University. "It's a road that we absolutely must travel."

In 2003 China successfully launched astronaut Yang Liwei into orbit, becoming the third country after the former Soviet Union and the United States to put a man in space from its own soil using locally-made rockets. It also hopes to launch a lunar exploration satellite some time this year as part of a scheme to put an unmanned vehicle on the Moon by 2012.

China's space program can be traced back to the mid-1950s, when it was started with Soviet help during a period of warm ties between the two giants of the Communist bloc. Even China's recent foray into manned space travel has come about with some assistance, as Chinese astronauts are known to have received advanced training in Russia.

Despite the history of cooperation, Chinese researchers have few illusions about the extent of know-how that Russia will be willing to share.

"Although science knows no borders, technology does, and there's no way others will let you in on their most advanced technological know-how," said Zhang. "It's hard to tell what kind of cooperation the future will bring, but it probably will help us [improve] our overall technological… abilities."