"In cooperation with Russia, the Khayyam satellite will be launched by a Soyuz rocket next week from the (Russian) Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan," the Iranian space agency announced on Wednesday evening.
This satellite, named in honor of the Persian poet and scholar Omar Khayyam (1048-1131), aims in particular to "monitor the borders of the country", improve agricultural productivity, control water resources and natural disasters. .
The launch is scheduled for Tuesday, Russia confirmed.
"On August 9, 2022, a Soyuz 2.1B rocket is scheduled to be launched from the Baikonur cosmodrome with a + Fregat + type stage, which is to put into orbit a + Khayyam + remote sensing device ordered by the Islamic Republic of Iran, as well as 16 small Russian satellites," according to a statement from the state corporation Roscosmos.
According to the same source, "the Khayyam device was designed and manufactured in enterprises that are part of Roscosmos".
This satellite, although put into orbit by Russia, will be guided and controlled by stations located in Iran, said the official Iranian news agency Irna.
These announcements come after Vladimir Putin came to Iran on July 19, where he met with his counterpart, Ebrahim Raisi, and the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
The latter had called for strengthening "long-term cooperation" with Russia, which has already launched the first Iranian satellite, Sina-1, from the Plesetsk cosmodrome in October 2005.
In June 2021, Vladimir Putin refuted reports from the Washington Post claiming that Russia was preparing to supply a sophisticated satellite to Iran, in order to improve Tehran's spying capabilities.
The Revolutionary Guards, Iran's ideological army, announced in March the launch of a new military reconnaissance satellite called Nour-2, after the launch of the first, Nour-1, in April 2020.
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For the United States, the Iranian space program is intended for military rather than commercial purposes, while Tehran maintains that its aerospace activities are peaceful and in accordance with a resolution of the Security Council of the United Nations.
© 2022 AFP