OREANDA-NEWS. October 15, 2008. A joint experiment is planned for Russian Phobos-Grunt and a Chinese satellite in Martian orbit, states Alexander Zakharov, academic secretary of the Russian Space Research Institute. Small Chinese satellite is to fly simultaneously with Russian Phobos-Grunt. The joint experiment is aimed at Phobos-Grunt sending a signal to go through the Martian ionosphere and to be acquired by the Chinese satellite.

Signal transmission through the Martian ionosphere can provide useful data about its density. This would be the first experiment of this type- two spacecraft will accomplish the same scientific task. Currently Russian Space Research Institute conducts tests of the scientific equipment to be installed on the Russian spacecraft. According to Zakharov, totally, there will be about 15 different scientific instruments on Phobos-Grunt.