It is a satellite named in honor of the Persian poet and scholar Omar Khayyam (1048-1131). Russia launched the Iranian Khayyam observation satellite from Kazakhstan on Tuesday, August 9. According to the American press, it could be used by Moscow to support its offensive in Ukraine, which Tehran refutes. This remote sensing satellite, which was launched by a Soyuz rocket from the Russian Baikonur cosmodrome, according to images broadcast live by the Russian space agency Roscosmos, was then placed in orbit.
Its aims include “monitoring the country’s borders”, improving agricultural productivity, controlling water resources and natural disasters, according to the Iranian Space Agency. According to a statement from Roscosmos, “the Khayyam device was designed and manufactured at enterprises that are part of Roscosmos.”
In October 2005, Russia had already launched Iran’s first satellite, Sina-1, from the Plesetsk cosmodrome in northwest Russia. The Revolutionary Guards, Iran’s ideological army, for their part announced in March 2022 the putting into orbit of a new military reconnaissance satellite called Nour-2, after the launch of the first, Nour-1, in April 2020.
The Khayyam was launched three weeks after Russian President Vladimir Putin visited Iran on July 19, where he met his counterpart Ebrahim Raisi and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on July 19. The latter had called for strengthening “long-term cooperation” with Russia. The launch of the Khayyam satellite also comes at a time when negotiations on Iranian nuclear power (bringing together Iran, Russia, China, France, the United Kingdom and Germany) have resumed in Vienna after a stalemate of several months, in order to save the agreement of 2015.
Roscosmos boss Yuri Borissov hailed, in a statement released after the launch, an “important step in bilateral Russian-Iranian cooperation, which paves the way for the establishment of new and larger projects”.
For his part, the Iranian Minister of Telecommunications, Issa Zarepour, praised a “historic” event and “a turning point for the beginning of a new cooperation in the space field between the two countries”. “The brilliant path of scientific and technological progress of the Islamic Republic of Iran continues despite sanctions and maximum pressure from enemies,” said Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanani.
In the eyes of the United States, the Iranian space program is intended for military rather than commercial purposes. Tehran maintains that its aerospace activities are peaceful and in accordance with a UN Security Council resolution.
The Iranian authorities, however, had to defend themselves against charges of a different type, after the Washington Post reported that Russia “plans to use the satellite for several months” as part of its offensive in Ukraine, before hand over control to Iran. Quoting unnamed Western intelligence sources, the American daily also claims that the satellite will provide Iran with “unprecedented capabilities, including near-uninterrupted surveillance of sensitive infrastructure in Israel and the Gulf”, but only after Moscow l will have used to “increase its surveillance of military objectives” in the conflict in Ukraine.
Tehran assured, Sunday August 7, that it would control “from the first day” this satellite. “All orders related to the control and operation of this satellite will be issued from the first day and immediately after the launch by Iranian experts based in the Iranian Ministry of Communications,” the Iranian Space Agency said in a statement. “No third country can access the data” sent by the satellite via an “encryption algorithm”, she assured, denouncing the “false” assertions of the American newspaper.
Washington, however, drove the point home. “We are aware of reports that Russia has launched a satellite with significant spy capabilities on behalf of Iran. The fact that Russia is deepening an alliance with Iran is something that the whole world should be viewed as a profound threat,” a State Department spokesperson said. In June 2021, Vladimir Putin refuted reports from the Washington Post claiming that Moscow was preparing to provide a sophisticated satellite to Iran to improve its espionage capabilities.
