China’s space program has announced plans to launch its first astronomy satellite and participate in joint projects with Russia .

China also will take part in Russia’s project to send an unmanned probe to Mars’ moon, Phobos, to collect soil samples, the paper said.

It gave no details, although a Russian space official said last year China would build a mini-satellite that would be carried by the Russian probe and released near Mars to collect data.

Russia has scheduled the probe’s launch for 2009.

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