The remote Pars 1 research-sensing satellite, launched by a Russian Soyuz rocket from the Vostochny Cosmodrome, weighs 134kg and is equipped with three cameras.

The cosmodrome, which came into service in 2016, is in the Amur region of Russia’s Far East, not far from the Russian border with China and about 1,500km from the port of Vladivostok.

“Our current domestic launch bases do not yet have the ability of injecting satellites at the right inclination for a sun-synchronous orbit, hence our use of a Russian launch base,” Iran’s information and communications minister Issa Zarepour told state television.

Russia sent Iran’s remote Khayyam sensing satellite into orbit in 2022 from Kazakhstan’s Baikonur Cosmodrome, reflecting deeper scientific cooperation between the two US-sanctioned countries.