Russian-Made Satellite To Boost Iran’s Earth-Imaging Capabilities

A Russian Soyuz 2.1b rocket has successfully orbited Iran’s Khayyam Earth-remote sensing satellite.

The launch took place at 8:52 a.m. Moscow time Aug. 9 from Baikonur spaceport in Kazakhstan. The Iranian Space Agency (ISA) later confirmed that the first telemetry data from the satellite had been received by its ground stations. The new satellite significantly boosts Iran’s Earth-imaging capabilities.

Khayyam was developed by the Russian companies VNIIEM Corp. and BARL. It is believed to have a weight of 650 kg (1,430 lb.), a service life of 5 to 7 years and can make 1.1-m resolution images of the Earth’s surface. ISA reported that the satellite would be deployed at 500-km (310-mi.) high Sun-synchronous orbit.

“Iran simply has no launch vehicles which can orbit satellites of such mass and capacities,” Yury Lyamin, a senior research fellow at the Moscow-based defense think-tank Center for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies, told Aerospace DAILY.

According to ISA, the domestically designed Qased rocket, which orbited Iran’s Noor remote sensing satellites, can deliver a payload of up to 50 kg to an altitude of 500 km. Iran launched Noor 2 in March 2022 to replace the Noor 1 spacecraft, which decayed from orbit after two years of service. These satellites are believed to have an image resolution of between 5 and 10 meters.

The agency also reported on Aug. 8 that Iran will gain the capacity to launch spacecraft up to 100 kg to a 500-km orbit by the end of the year. According to Lyamin, this could refer to the expected first test launch of the new solid-fuel Qaem rocket developed by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

Lyamin says Khayyam was expected to be operated from a new space flight control center in Karaj, near Tehran. ISA insists that this facility belongs to the country’s ministry of communications and information technologies, which will use the satellite only for domestic civilian needs.

The Soyuz 2.1b with its Fregat upper stage also orbited 16 other Russian scientific and educational cubesats as piggy-back payloads. The smallsats were developed under the Space PI program, which encourages Russian university and high school students to design spacecraft.

This was Russia’s 12th space launch for this year, but only its second commercial flight of 2022, following the launch of 34 OneWeb satellites by a Soyuz 2.1 from Guiana Space Center in February.