Tehran - (AFP) - Iran has rejected US suggestions that the satellite , launched by Russia for Tehran on Tuesday, will be used for "espionage" purposes, saying they are just "childish" comments.

Moscow launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on board a "Soyuz 2.1-B" rocket, the "Khayyam" remote-sensing satellite belonging to Tehran.

The move was criticized by the United States, which, according to a spokesman for its State Department, said that the growing cooperation between Russia and Iran should be seen as a "deep threat."

"We are aware of reports that Russia launched a satellite with great spying capabilities on behalf of Iran," he added.

In statements to reporters Wednesday in Tehran, the head of the Iranian Space Organization, Hassan Salariyeh, said, "Sometimes, some statements are made to stir up tensions. Saying that we want to spy through the Khayam satellite ... is childish."

He stressed that "the Khayyam satellite was completely designed to meet the country's needs in crisis management... natural resources, mines, agriculture and others."

The Washington Post had previously quoted Western intelligence officials as saying that Russia would initially use this satellite for months for military purposes related to its invasion of Ukraine, before handing it over to Tehran.

However, the Iranian Space Organization stressed in a statement Sunday that the satellite and the commands related to its operation and control "will be issued from the first day and immediately after launch by Iranian experts at the space bases of the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology."

And she stressed that "sending commands and receiving information from this satellite will be done according to encrypted algorithms... and there is no possibility for a third country to access this information, and some rumors that have spread about the use of images of this satellite for military purposes by other countries are incorrect."

The moon, which is likely to bear this name in relation to the Persian scientist and poet Omar Khayyam, who lived between the eleventh and twelfth centuries, aims to "monitor the country's borders" and improve productivity in the field of agriculture, control water resources and manage natural risks, according to the Iranian agency.

Iran asserts that its space program is exclusively for civil and defense purposes, and does not violate any international agreements, including the agreement with the six major powers regarding its nuclear program that was concluded in 2015, and the United States withdrew from it in 2018.

Iranian space activities are often condemned by Western countries, due to fears that Tehran will resort to enhancing its expertise in the field of ballistic missiles by launching satellites into space.

Iran has previously launched satellites directly from its territory, the last of which was in March 2022 with the "Noor 2" military satellite belonging to the Revolutionary Guards.

This was the second time the Guard announced its success in launching a military satellite, after it reported on April 22, 2020 that Noor 1 had been put into orbit, stressing that it was the first Iranian satellite of this kind.