negotiations with Russia in 2003 when Russia cancelled the project under US pressures. The satellite was to be of Express-1000 type and capable of relaying telephone, fax, data and television signals with a life span of 15 years. In September 2010, Iran announced that it will build and launch the satellite locally as the foreign contractors had refused to complete the project. New launch date for the satellite was announced as 2014. Russia had announced in 2009 that it is not going to cooperate with Iran on any space projects but reversed course again following the lifting of international sanctions against Iran in 2015. Iran has also solicited NASA's cooperation in future space projects. Ekvator, a geosynchronous communications satellite built by ISS Reshetnev for Iran in a continuation of previous Russia-Iran space cooperation efforts. As of October 2022, Ekvator is expected to be launched on a Proton-M rocket in early 2024. Space centers The main launch site of the Iranian Space Agency is Shahrud, located at , where suborbital Shahab 3s LV have been launched. Qom, located at , is the other launch site. On occasion of the inaugural launch of Iran's first Safir-class sub-orbital rocket called Kavoshgar-1 (Explorer-1), Iran unveiled on 4 February 2008, its first Satellite Launch Center in Semnan city. The facility includes an underground command and control center, a tracking station and a launchpad among other structures. In December 2010, it was announced that due to geographical limitations of first space center in injecting satellite into orbit, studies have been carried out for setting up a second (satellite) launch pad. The new national spaceport of Iran, named after Imam Khomeini, is being built in Semnan. This new port is to be used to launch all future Iranian space missions similar to American Kennedy Space Center or the Baikonur Cosmodrome. In March 2011, Jane's Information Group reported on the basis of its satellite imagery analysis of Iranian space launch sites that Iran is aggressively building complex facilities with very rapid pace showing the nation's inclinations towards space readiness. In June 2013, Iran inaugurated its first space monitoring center located near Delijan in Markazi province, according to Iran's Defense Minister General Ahmad Vahidi the new center which was named Imam Ja'far Sadeq would mostly be used to track and detect space objects and satellites passing overhead using radar, electro-optic and radio systems. Human spaceflight program Iran expressed for