Iran launches 3 homegrown satellites from Russia

Iran on Sunday successfully launched three domestically produced satellites into space for agriculture and environmental research from a Russian launch site, marking the seventh time the country has used Russian rockets for satellite deployment, the official news agency IRNA reported.

The remote sensing satellites Zafar-2, Paya and Kowsar-1.5 were launched into a low-Earth orbit 500 km above the Earth by a Soyuz-2.1b rocket from the Vostochny Cosmodrome in eastern Russia, according to IRNA. The Russian rocket, lifting off at 16:48 Tehran time (1318 GMT), also carried 49 other satellites, including a pair of Aist-2T, Russian optical Earth observation satellites.