Iranian scientists linked to its defense establishment made a second covert trip to Russia last year as part of what the United States says is an effort to obtain dual-use technologies with potential nuclear weapons applications, the Financial Times reported on Tuesday.
Hassan Salarieh, head of the Iranian Space Agency, told a media event in Semnan that the Zafar-2, Paya and the second batch of Kosar imaging satellites are ready for launch.
He said Iran’s space sector had advanced to the point where “satellites with one-meter and sub-five-meter imaging resolution are now under construction.”
Salarieh said the first experimental launch from the Chabahar Space Center – a coastal site under development in Iran’s southeast – will take place next year.
“Chabahar is becoming one of the most important launch centers in West Asia,” he said, adding that its construction began in 2023 and that the site is designed to support heavier, liquid-fuel launch vehicles.
His comments come as Iran accelerates work on Chabahar’s second development phase. In April, the agency said the facility would eventually handle semi-heavy liquid-fuel rockets and serve as Iran’s main space gateway, with a geographic position suited for placing satellites into sun-synchronous and geostationary orbits.
Salarieh said Iran had also signed its first private-sector contracts for satellite constellations, including the narrow-band Kosar system intended for emergency data transfer, and highlighted recent milestones such as the launch of private-built satellites on a Russian rocket, the successful 2023 flight of the solid-fuel Sorayya launcher, and the deployment of the Nahid-2 communications satellite in 2025.
Iran has long said its space program is civilian and scientific, though Western governments argue that technologies used for orbital launches can advance long-range ballistic missile capabilities.
President Masoud Pezeshkian has said Iran’s missile and space work supports national deterrence, while Defense Minister Aziz Nasirzadeh has said Tehran could eventually offer launch services to allied states.
Salarieh said domestic expertise had raised Iran’s launch capacity to “several hundred kilograms” and that efforts in propulsion, solid-fuel and liquid-fuel systems had advanced in parallel over the past three years.
Iran’s space program has picked up pace since the 2009 launch of the Omid satellite, with universities and state-linked research centers producing a series of experimental spacecraft.
In 2023 and 2024, Iran also carried out multiple sub-orbital tests, launched reconnaissance satellites via foreign rockets and unveiled new satellite buses and transfer stages, including the Saman-1 upper stage designed for higher-altitude orbits.
Salarieh said the government sees space as a strategic industry with economic, security and industrial implications. “We have strong human capital and significant infrastructure,” he said. “The development of space capability will continue rapidly.”
The previously undisclosed visit, held between November 7 and 11, 2024, involved physicists and engineers travelling on consecutively numbered diplomatic passports and meeting Russian institutes connected to military research, the report said, citing documents it obtained and corroborated through corporate filings, sanctions records, leaked travel data and other correspondence.
According to the report, the exchanges form part of a broader pattern of contact between Russian military-linked research centers and Iran’s Organization of Defensive Innovation and Research (SPND), a Defense Ministry body long sanctioned by Washington for alleged work on nuclear weapons design.
Jim Lamson, a senior research associate at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies and a former CIA analyst, told the FT the evidence indicated that Iran’s defense-linked scientists were “seeking laser technology and expertise that could help them validate a nuclear weapon design without conducting a nuclear explosive test.”
Tehran maintains its nuclear program is entirely peaceful, and Moscow has publicly opposed the Islamic Republic obtaining a nuclear weapon.
The delegation met Laser Systems, a Russian company under US sanctions that develops equipment for both civilian and classified military use.
The November 2024 mission followed an earlier set of meetings revealed in August, which showed that a Vienna-linked procurement network involving DamavandTec – and using diplomatic passports issued by Iran’s foreign ministry – had arranged introductions between Iranian nuclear scientists and Russian companies with defense and intelligence ties.
Academic and institutional records reviewed by the FT showed the men who travelled were not DamavandTec employees but researchers from Shahid Beheshti University, Islamic Azad University of Kashan and Malek Ashtar University of Technology, an institution under US and EU sanctions for its role in nuclear-related activity.
The FT said the visit had been framed in invitations as an opportunity for technological collaboration, though the scope of any technology transfer between the two sides remains unclear.
The findings come against the backdrop of years of Western allegations that SPND operates covert procurement networks in Europe and Asia to source dual-use equipment.
An investigation by Iran International in 2025 documented a Vienna-based hub tied to SPND-linked front firms purchasing neutronics-related and other sensitive components with potential applications in nuclear weapons design.
Washington has sanctioned more than 30 SPND scientists and multiple affiliated entities, saying the organization oversees “dual-use research and development activities applicable to nuclear weapons and nuclear weapons delivery systems.”
In 2024, Iran’s parliament formally recognized SPND under Iranian law, placed it under the authority of the Supreme Leader and exempted its budget from parliamentary oversight.
