A Russian Kosmos 3M rocket launched multiple satellites Oct. 27, including a pair of imaging microsateilltes, a spacecraft built by European students and Iran’s first satellite, according to the European Space Agency (ESA) and Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd. (SSTL). The Kosmos vehicle lifted off from Plesetsk Cosmodrome in northern Russia at 2:52 a.m. EDT

The Student Space Exploration and Technology Initiative (SSETI) Express satellite was designed and built by European university students under the supervision of ESA’s Education Department. The spacecraft will take images of Earth and function as a radio transponder, as well as act as a testbed for projects that include a cold-gas attitude control system. SSETI Express, similar in size and shape to a washing machine, also carried three 1-kilogram picosatellites, ESA said.

The Kosmos also carried a pair of Earth observation microsatellites, Beijing-1 for China and Topsat for the U.K. government, built by SSTL. The spacecraft join four previous microsatellites launched in 2002 and 2003 in SSTL’s Disaster Monitoring Constellation, which provides images of disaster-stricken areas.

Also aboard the Kosmos rocket were Mozhaets-5, built by a Russian military academy, and an experimental Iranian microsatellite dubbed Mesbah, SSTL said. The Iranian press has described the satellite as being for telecommunications and research purposes.