(by Andrea Pinto) Yesterday a Russian rocket launched an Iranian surveillance satellite into orbit which, according to Western analysts, will improve Iran's intelligence gathering. Therefore, the announced ever closer collaboration between Russia and Iran is growing. After the invasion of Ukraine and the imposition of Western sanctions, Russia has tried to forge multi-year agreements and collaborations with new partners, including Iran, which, among other things, manages to favor a safe passage also to Russian trade. with India.
Iran, for its part, confirmed this week that the satellite launch is part of a four-year space cooperation agreement between the two countries.
Yuri Borisov, general manager of Roscosmos , the Russian space agency, in a note commented on the launch of the Iranian satellite into orbit: "The successful launch of the satellite in the interest of Iran is an important milestone in the Russian-Iranian bilateral cooperation, paving the way for the implementation of new and even larger projects ",
The Iranian space agency reported that the satellite, called Khayyam, is equipped with a high-resolution camera capable of increasing Tehran's ability to monitor sites, including potential military targets, in Israel and the wider Middle East.
The Russian Soyuz rocket carrying the Khayyam satellite into orbit took off from Russia's Baikonur launch facility in Kazakhstan shortly before 9:00 am. Iranian scientists took control of the satellite immediately after launch, the agency said. According to Russian news reports last week, Roscosmos said Russian companies have built the satellite for Iran. The Russian embassy in Tehran said in a post on its Instagram account that the satellite was ordered by Iran and built by Russia and which was designed for non-military purposes. Iran relied on the Russian experience because until now it had only launched satellites that weighed less than 50 kilograms, about 110 pounds, and Khayyam weighs nearly half a ton, according to the Tasnim news agency, affiliated with the Revolutionary Guards.
Iranfirst launched its own domestically produced satellite into orbit in 2009, and its still young space program has had a shaky history. In the decade following its first launch, about 67 percent of Iranian orbital launches have failed, compared to a 5 percent failure rate worldwide for similar space launches. The satellite launched on Tuesday is named after Omar Khayyam, the famous medieval 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
Tal Inbar, senior researcher at the Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance, an American organization, said the satellite will provide better ground images representing a significant challenge for Israel. "Israel has long had such observation capacity, but as far as Iran is concerned, this is a real breakthrough: for the first time, Iran owns and operates a satellite with high image resolution, better than it had until to now“Commented Inbar.
"From now on, Iran will be able to gather much more accurate intelligence information for the military operations of their forces and for the organizations they support ”. He added: "This is a significant narrowing of the technological gap between Iran, Israel and the United States."
The Iranian space agency, however, denied, last Sunday with a note, the conjectures of Western analysts, stating that the satellite will not be used for military purposes but will be used for agricultural programs, water resources and other environmental applications.
However, Iranian domestic analysts, close to the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, posted messages on social networks emphasizing the satellite's ability to accurately monitor American and Israeli military bases from space.
"A country's path to satellite development cannot be stopped or denied“, The Iranian space agency said in a statement. "The same goes for international cooperation. This will transform the Iranian space industry as an exporter of new technologies", he added.
"Today is a turning point for the start of a new interaction in the space field between our two countries", he has declared Isa Zarepour, Iranian Minister for Communications and Information Technologies. Although the launch negotiations preceded the Russian invasion of Ukraine, it comes less than a month after President Vladimir V. Putin visited Tehran.
Iran has a long track record of evading Western sanctions. The United States says Tehran has sold drones to Russians for use in Ukraine alongside other equipment using technologies that Western nations are no longer selling to Moscow.
Washington's reaction
The launch of the Iranian satellite with a Russian rocket provoked a vehement reaction from Washington who, through the spokesman for the State Department, commented: "We are aware of reports that Russia has launched a satellite with significant spying capabilities on behalf of Iran. The fact that Russia is strengthening an alliance with Iran is something that the whole world should consider as a serious threat ".
In the eyes of the United States, the nascent Iranian space program is intended for military rather than commercial and environmental purposes. Instead, Iran argues that its aerospace activities are peaceful and in accordance with a UN Security Council resolution.
In June 2021, Vladimir Putin had already said that Moscow was preparing to provide a sophisticated satellite to Iran to improve its spying capabilities. Putin himself then branded the news as "Fake news". Whatever the Russian head of state meant at the time, the existence of this Russian-Iranian remote sensing device has been known for several years, as Moscow and Tehran announced their intention to undertake this joint project as early as 2015.
At the beginning of 2021, Valeriy Laboutine, Russian project manager for the “Khayyam” program, specified that the 650 kg satellite has a linear resolution of 0,73 meters for a duration of five to seven years. Even if this image quality is far from reaching the standards of western spy satellites, it multiplies by ten times the capabilities of the previous satellite produced and launched by Iran in 2021 and therefore gives it an autonomous surveillance capability.