Two weeks after Russian President Vladimir Putin’s visit to Tehran, the two nations have announced that Russia will place an Iranian remote sensing satellite into orbit on Tuesday.
The Khayyam satellite will be launched by a Soyuz satellite carrier from the Baikonur space station in Kazakhstan next week, the Iranian space agency announced late Wednesday.
According to the agency, the satellite, which is reportedly named after the Persian polymath Omar Khayyam, was launched in order to “watch the country’s borders,” improve agricultural production, and keep an eye on water supplies and natural calamities.
The launch is set to take place on Tuesday, according to Roscosmos, the state space corporation of Russia.
It announced that a Soyuz 2.1B rocket would launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome on August 9, 2022, “to place the Khayyam remote sensing equipment requested by the Islamic Republic of Iran into orbit.”
It said, “The Khayyam device was conceived and produced at businesses that are a part of the state firm Roscosmos.
The announcement of the launch comes after Putin’s visit to Iran on July 19, during which he met with President Ebrahim Raisi and Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
In his discussions with Putin, Khamenei urged strengthening “long-term collaboration” with Russia.
The satellite can capture images of the earth’s surface in a variety of picture spectrum, according to Iran’s official news agency, IRNA.
The Plesetsk cosmodrome in Russia hosted the launch of Iran’s Sina-1 satellite, which was designed to research and observe the Earth.
Putin refuted claims made by US media in June 2021 that Russia will give Iran a sophisticated satellite system that would greatly enhance its eavesdropping capabilities.
Iran maintains that its space programme does not violate any other international accord or the 2015 nuclear agreement between Iran and global powers because it is primarily used for defence and civil objectives.
Western nations are concerned that satellite launch systems contain components that can be used interchangeably in ballistic missiles that can deliver nuclear warheads, something Iran has consistently denied trying to develop.
In April 2020, Iran was able to successfully launch its first military satellite into space, earning the country harsh criticism from the US.
The ideological branch of Iran’s armed forces, the Revolutionary Guards, declared in March that Nour-2, a military “reconnaissance satellite,” had been successfully launched into orbit
(With inputs from agencies)
