Shanghai Space Administration sources told the Xinhua news agency that China is collaborating with Russia to launch the probe in October 2009. It is expected a Russian rocket will be used to lift a Chinese-built satellite and a Russian exploration vehicle into space.
After a 10-month journey, their mission will be to survey Mars, the so-called Red Planet, with the Chinese satellite and take soil samples of Phobos, the larger of Mars' two moons, with the Russian exploration vehicle called Phobos-Grunt.
"We hope to explore the spatial environment there, secrets behind disappearance of water, and the features of evolution," said Chen Changya, a researcher at the Shanghai Institute of Satellite Engineering.
Copyright 2007 by United Press International
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