Russia put Iran’s first ever satellite into space on Thursday, as a Kosmos-3M rocket blasted off from the northwestern Plesetsk launch site carrying one Russian and seven foreign devices, the Russian space agency said.
The launcher successfully took off at 0652 GMT carrying a Russian military Mozhayets-5 satellite, an Iranian Sina-1, a Chinese China-DMC, a British Topsat, a European Space Agency SSETI Express, a Norwegian NCube, a German UVE-1 and a Japanese XI-V, the agency said in a statement.
The Iranian press has described the satellite as being for telecommunications and research purposes.
Iranian officials have repeatedly said they were on the verge of seeing their first satellite launched. In July, former deputy communications minister Hassan Shafti said a telecommunications satellite codenamed ”Mesbah” (Lantern) would be launched this year.
He said that out of five Iranian satellites planned for construction, three are to be launched over the next three years.
Iran has been making continued progress in ballistics, a source of concern in the West along with the country’s nuclear programme. – Sapa-AFP