Two Russian space companies inked an agreement with an Iranian corporation on Tuesday to create Iran's own satellite observation system, Sputnik News reported on August 25. Remote-sensing systems are used to gather information about the Earth's surface, atmosphere and oceans. Russian company NPK BARL will be in charge of building the system's ground infrastructure, while another Russian company, VNIIEM, will take care of building and launching the satellites. Iran's Bonyan Danesh Shargh will be the operating company. "The pre-contractual arrangement covers the development of an earth remote-sensing system based on an upgraded version of the Kanopus-V1 (Canopus-B) observation satellite," Russia's VNIIEM Corporation CEO Leonid Makridenko said. "The launch on a Russian Soyuz carrier rocket is tentatively scheduled for 2018," he added. According to the report, the agreement was signed in the presence of Deputy Prime Minister of Russia Dmitry Rogozin and Roscosmos General Director Igor Komarov. Iran has in recent years made great headways in manufacturing satellites thanks to the efforts made by its local scientists. The country successfully launched its first indigenous data-processing satellite, Omid (hope), into orbit back in 2009. As part of a comprehensive plan to develop its space program, Iran also successfully launched its second satellite, dubbed Rassad (observation), into the earth's orbit in June 2011. Rassad's mission was to take images of the earth and transmit them along with telemetry information to ground stations. The country launched its domestically-built Navid-e Elm-o Sanat (harbinger of science and industry) satellite into orbit in February 2012. In January 2013, Iran sent a monkey into space aboard an indigenous bio-capsule code-named Pishgam (pioneer). And later in December that year, the country's scientists could successfully send a monkey, called ‘Fargam' (auspicious), into space aboard Pajoheshan (research) indigenous rocket and return the live simian back to earth safely.
