A Russian missile launched an Iranian satellite into orbit on Tuesday, a tangible sign of growing cooperation between the two countries in the face of tough Western sanctions imposed on both.
A Soyuz rocket carrying the “Khayyam” satellite into orbit has launched just before 9 a.m. from the Russian-run Baikonur launch facility in Kazakhstan
“The successful launch of the satellite in Iran’s interest and on the orders of Iran has become an important milestone in Russian-Iranian bilateral cooperation, paving the way for the implementation of new and even larger projects,” said Yury Borisov, the director. General of Roscosmos. , the Russian space agency said in a statement.
Russia has been seeking closer alliances, including with Iran, since the invasion of Ukraine left it isolated from many Western countries.
Iran said in a statement that the satellite will not be used for military applications, as some news media reports have suggested.
“The rumors about the use of the satellite’s photos for military purposes are false,” the Iranian statement said.
The satellite, equipped with a high-resolution camera, will be used for agricultural programs, water resources and other environmental applications, the Iranian space agency said in the statement. Iranian scientists took control of the satellite immediately after launch, and no other country would have access to the information it collected.
Although the launch negotiations preceded Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, it comes less than a month after President Vladimir V. Putin visited Tehran in his quest to demonstrate that the Western sanctions imposed during the war were failing. succeeded in isolating his country.
Iran has long experience of evading Western sanctions, and the US says it has offered to sell Russian drones for use in Ukraine and other equipment using technology that Western countries no longer sell to Moscow.
“Today is a turning point for the start of a new space interaction between our two countries,” Iran’s communications and information technology minister Isa Zarepour said in a statement.
The satellite is named after Omar Khayyam, a noted Persian scientist and poet. The Baikonur facility has been used for space launches for decades and was inaugurated when Kazakhstan was part of the Soviet Union.