Congratulating the envoy on the US mission that has seen two probes land on the surface of the Red Planet in the past three weeks, Putin said that Russia "has noted with interest President (George W.) Bush's ambitious plans for the conquest of Mars," the Interfax news agency reported.

"I believe that in this area there are things we can do together," Putin said.

Powell for his part said that he was "pleased with the developments that are on the horizon with respect to continued cooperation in space."

Bush earlier this month said his administration planned to send American astronauts back to the Moon as early as 2015, perhaps to set up a base to provide a springboard for a manned mission to Mars, and invited other space powers to join in the initiative.

The initial response from Moscow was cool however. Russian space officials hinted that Moscow was capable of launching its own Mars mission at considerably lower cost than the US proposal, but Deputy Prime Minister Boris Alyoshin said last week that "the time is not right" for such a mission.

The US probe Opportunity landed on the Mars surface on Saturday with a similar exploratory mission to Spirit which landed on Mars on January 3 but broke down last week.

Opportunity began transmitting pictures back to Earth that US space officials described as a "scientific jackpot."

SPACE.WIRE