TEHRAN - Iran is planning to launch two national remote sensing and telecommunication satellites by 2025, Communications and Information Technology Minister Mahmoud Va’ezi announced on Wednesday.

The telecommunication satellite will be put into space by a domestically developed launcher, Va’ezi said in a ceremony organized to mark National Day of Space Technology.
“Indigenization of space technologies is the main focus of the Iranian Space Agency,” the minister noted.
Also, Va’ezi said high on the agenda will be cooperation with major global partners active in the aerospace industry to supply components required for the manufacturing of the satellites and initial talks have already being held.
In the event, President Hassan Rouhani unveiled a micro-class fifty-kilogram satellite dubbed the Friendship Satellite.
In addition to the satellite, Va’ezi announced the opening of the national remote sensing laboratory and the first phase of the satellite testing center of the Iranian Space Agency which includes nine laboratories and a space workshop.
Moreover, Va’ezi saw the post-sanctions Iran as unique opportunity for developing the country’s potential in the field of space technology, giving a mission outline of the apace agency.
According to the telecommunication minister, some items of the space roadmap were setting the scene for the participation of Iranian companies in the space industry, emphasizing domestic production and increasing the country’s share in the global space trade and benefitting from the post-sanctions era to flourish the industry.
Prior to Va’ezi’s speech, Dr. Bahrami, the head of the Iranian Space Agency, addressed the audience, saying National Space Day was marked in the Iranian calendar on the back of the launching of the first domestically developed satellite some years ago.
Dr. Bahrami also said the Iranian Space Agency will plan to hold an annual contest where Iranian students can take their satellite-designing knowledge to the show.

--------‘More development in space sciences in post-sanctions era’

Manouchehr Manteghi, head of the National Space Center, said on Wednesday that Iranian universities have conducted marvelous achievements in acquiring space sciences and “we expect to use all the potentials we have developed during the post-sanctions era by engaging with the world”.

“Presently we are looking for developing Iran’s national satellite program, as we are moving toward standardizing our space products,” Manouchehr Manteghi told IRNA.

Iranian space scientists are going to use all the domestic and international potentials following the removal of Western-imposed sanctions to address both the internal and foreign needs in space sciences, Manteghi said.

“Now we can use the foreign launching facilities to put in the orbit our indigenous, multi-functional satellites and we can have access as well to foreign space technologies and expertise,” he added.

AK/PA