“Iran is interested in our plans (new federal aerospace program), they want to find their place in the market of remote-sensing devices. They want their own weather satellites, satellites and remote sensing devices,” Rogozin told Rossiya-24 television.
Back in August, Tehran and Moscow had signed a cooperation agreement to build Iran’s own remote-sensing satellite systems.
Russia is a major player in the satellite industry.
Iran, too, has in recent years made great headways in manufacturing satellites.
The country successfully launched its first indigenous data-processing satellite, Omid (hope), into orbit back in 2009.
As part of a comprehensive plan to develop its space program, Iran also successfully launched its second satellite, dubbed Rassad (observation), into the earth’s orbit in June 2011. Rassad’s mission was to take images of the earth and transmit them along with telemetry information to ground stations.
The country launched its domestically-built Navid-e Elm-o Sanat (harbinger of science and industry) satellite into orbit in February 2012.
In January 2013, Iran sent a monkey into space aboard an indigenous bio-capsule code-named Pishgam (pioneer).
And later in December that year, the country’s scientists could successfully send a monkey, called ‘Fargam’ (auspicious), into space aboard Pajoheshan (research) indigenous rocket and return the live simian back to earth safely.