Iran launched a satellite into space on Saturday using a rocket built by the country’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guards, state media reported, the latest in a program that Western fears is helping Tehran advance its agenda. ballistic missile program.
Iran called the launch a success, and said it would be the second such launch aimed at ending the war. satellite in orbit with the rocket. There was no immediate independent confirmation that the launch was successful.
Footage later released by Iranian media showed the rocket being launched from a mobile launcher. An analysis of the video and other footage later released by The Associated Press suggests the launch took place from the Guard’s launch pad on the outskirts of the city of Shahroud, about 215 miles (345 kilometers) east of the capital, Tehran.
The launch comes amid heightened tensions across the Middle East over ongoing war between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip, during which Tehran launched an unprecedented direct offensive Missile and drone attack on IsraelMeanwhile, Iran continues to enrich uranium to levels close to those needed for military purposes, raising concerns among nonproliferation experts about Tehran’s program.
Iran identified the rocket carrying the satellite as the Qaem-100, which the Guards used in January for another successful launch. Qaem means “standing” in Farsi.
The three-stage solid-fuel rocket placed the 60-kilogram Chamran-1 satellite into a 555-kilometer orbit, state media reported. The rocket carried a Quranic verse: “What God has left is better for you, if you are believers.”
ISA via AP
A state-owned subsidiary of Iran’s Defense Ministry and experts from the Aerospace Research Institute built the satellite with others to “test hardware and software systems for validation of orbital maneuvering technology,” state media said, without elaborating.
Guard chief Gen. Hossein Salami welcomed the launch in a statement and said the scientists had successfully overcome “the atmosphere of extensive and oppressive international sanctions.”
The U.S. State Department and the U.S. military did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the Iranian launch.
The United States had previously said Iran’s satellite launches violated a U.N. Security Council resolution and called on Tehran to refrain from any activity involving ballistic missiles capable of delivering nuclear weapons. U.N. sanctions related to Iran’s ballistic missile program expired last October.
Under the relatively moderate presidency of former Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, the Islamic Republic slowed its space program for fear of escalating tensions with the West. Ebrahim RaisiA protégé of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who came to power in 2021, pushed the agenda forward. Raisi died in a helicopter crash in May.
It is not clear what the new reformist Iranian president means. Massoud Pezeshkianwants for the program because he remained silent on the issue during the campaign.
The US intelligence community’s worldwide threat assessment this year said Iran’s development of satellite launchers would “shorten the time frame” for Iran to develop an intercontinental ballistic missile because it uses similar technology.
Intercontinental ballistic missiles can be used to deliver nuclear weapons. Iran is now producing uranium at levels close to those needed to make nuclear weapons after its nuclear deal with world powers collapsed. Tehran has enough enriched uranium for “several” nuclear weapons, should it decide to produce them, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has repeatedly warned.
Iran has consistently denied pursuing nuclear weapons and says its space program, like its nuclear activities, is for purely civilian purposes. However, U.S. intelligence agencies and the IAEA say Iran had an organized military nuclear program until 2003.
The launch also came ahead of the second anniversary of the death of Mahsa Amini, 22 years oldwhich sparked nationwide protests against Iran’s compulsory headscarf law, or hijab, and the country’s Shiite theocracy.
