Iran plans to commission three more versions of a satellite launched by Russia this week, the Tehran government spokesman said on Friday.
The Khayyam rocketed into orbit on Tuesday, prompting US allegations that it was intended for spying. Iran dismissed Washington’s claim as “childish”.
“The construction of three more Khayyam satellites with the participation of Iranian scientists is on the government’s agenda,” spokesman Ali Bahadori- Jahromi said on Twitter.
A Soyuz 2.1b rocket sent the satellite into orbit from Moscow’s Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
In response to the launch, Washington said Russia’s growing cooperation with Iran should be viewed as a “profound threat,” but Iran’s space agency head Hassan Salarieh denied the accusation.
He said the Khayyam is designed to meet Iran’s needs in terms of “crisis and city management, natural resources, mines, agriculture and so on.”
The Khayyam was built by the Russians under Iranian supervision, Salarieh said at a press conference on Wednesday.
Before the launch, the Washington Post quoted anonymous Western intelligence officials as saying that Russia “plans to use the satellite for several months or more” to aid its war effort before allowing Iran to take control.
Iran’s space agency on Sunday stressed that it would control the satellite “from day one,” in an apparent response to the Post’s report.
Khayyam, apparently named after the 11th-century Persian polymath Omar Khayyam, will not be the first Iranian satellite Russia has sent into space.
In 2005, Iran’s Sina-1 satellite was deployed from Russia’s Plesetsk Cosmodrome.
The new satellite’s launch came a day after the European Union presented a “final text” at talks to salvage a 2015 deal aimed at reining in Iran’s nuclear ambitions, which Tehran said it was reviewing .
The United States has accused Iran of effectively supporting Russia’s war on Ukraine while wearing a “veil of neutrality.”
Iran insists its space program is for civilian and defense purposes only and does not violate the 2015 nuclear deal or other international agreements.
Western governments fear that satellite launch systems contain technology interchangeable with that used in ballistic missiles capable of carrying a nuclear warhead, something Iran has always denied wanting to build.
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