“No third country can access the data” sent by the satellite via a “encryption algorithm”, she assured, denouncing the “false” assertions of the American newspaper. In October 2005, Russia had already launched the first Iranian satellite, Sina-1, from the cosmodrome of Plesetsk (north-west of Russia).
The Khayyam will be launched three weeks after Russian President Vladimir Putin visited Iran on July 19, where he met his counterpart Ebrahim Raisi and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on July 19. The latter had called for strengthening “long-term cooperation” with Russia.
In June 2021, the Russian president refuted reports from the Washington Post claiming that Moscow was preparing to provide a sophisticated satellite to Iran to improve its espionage capabilities.