China and Russia have signed a space exploration cooperation agreement in Moscow, coinciding with Chinese President Hu Jintao's visit to Russia.

The administrator of the China National Space Administration (CNSA) Sun Laiyan and his Russian counterpart, the head of the Federal Space Agency of the Russian Federation (Roscosmos) Anatoly Perminov, signed the agreement to explore Mars and its moon Phobos on Monday.

According to the agreement, a small Chinese satellite and the Russian Phobos probe will be launched together by a Russian carrier rocket in 2009.

The Russian Phobos probe will send the small Chinese satellite into orbit around Mars, from which it will work independently to compile data on the environment in space surrounding the red planet. It will also carry out a joint exploration of Mars' environment with the Russian probe via radio occultation technology.

The Phobos probe will land on Mars' moon and collect soil samples to return to Earth. Hong Kong Polytechnic University has developed a system for the probe to carry out thermodynamic analysis on the surface of Phobos.

The agreement is a significant milestone in China-Russia space cooperation and is sure to promote the strategic cooperative partnership between China and Russia.