The rocket was also carrying a Russian military Mozhayets-5 satellite, a Chinese China-DMC, a British TopSat, a European Space Agency SSETI Express (Student Space Exploration and Technology Initiative-Express), a Norwegian nCube, a German UWE-1, and a Japanese XI-V. Sina-1's Satellite Catalog Number or USSPACECOM object number is 28893.

[citation needed] When difficulties arose with indigenous booster development, the Iranian Institute of Applied Research turned to the Omsk-based Russian company Polyot.

Mesbah, similar to Sina-1, is a reconnaissance satellite which will be used to monitor natural phenomena on Iran's territory.

Iranian officials were originally going to use the recently cancelled Shahab-4 missile to carry out the process of launching satellites into space.

[citation needed] In January 2005, Iran and a Russian firm sealed a $132 million deal to build a telecommunication satellite called Zohreh (Venus).