​On Wednesday, December 6, 2023, the Iranian Salman rocket launched a biocapsule on a parabolic (suborbital) trajectory that reached an altitude of 130 km. This bio-capsule is designed to carry animals, but it is unclear if any animals were aboard the capsule launched on December 6. Iran sent a monkey into space twice in 2013, but it’s hard to say whether those missions were successful.

Another attempt, from 2011, failed. After 2013, the space flight program with animals on board some capsules was poorly funded and eventually abandoned, but the current administration in Tehran seems to be more interested in space projects this time. Eisa Zarepour, Iran’s current communications minister, recently said that his country plans to send a crew into orbit in 1407 (2028-2029 according to the Gregorian calendar). Iran is no stranger to successful space missions, but it has also been marked by setbacks and periods of underfunding. Next, consider a brief history of the Iranian space program.

In 2009, Iran became the ninth country capable of independently launching its own satellites

In 2009, Iran became the ninth country to independently launch its own satellites: its home-built Safir-1 rocket launched the Omid satellite on February 2, 2009, coinciding with the 30th anniversary of the 1979 Iranian Revolution, then a few months earlier Iran made its first orbital flight, but without a functional satellite aboard the Safir-1 rocket’s upper stage.

The Iranian Space Agency (ISA) was established in 2004. Before Safir, the Iranians used a two-stage (later three-stage) liquid-fueled Kavoshgar engine for suborbital flights, which could reach altitudes of up to 200 kilometers, but it was not powerful enough to reach orbit. Kavoshgar is based on the Shahab-3 ballistic missile, which in turn was inspired by North Korea (Nodong-1) and has been used in recent years for various suborbital tests (so the cooperation between Iran and the Pyongyang regime in this field is well known). Kavoshgar-1 first flew on February 4, 2008 in a suborbital trajectory, followed by Kavoshgar-2 in November 2008. Iran’s space program is heavily funded because it is seen as contributing to the country’s prestige, so it is a priority for the regime in Tehran.

Safir-1 was first launched on August 17, 2008 from the Imam Khomeini Air Base in Semnan, but apparently had no satellite on board

Safir-1 was first launched on August 17, 2008 from the Imam Khomeini base in Semnan, but apparently did not have a satellite on board. Even if it had, it would have been destroyed by an explosion shortly after launch, although official Iranian sources say the suborbital flight was a success, even though no third country was able to detect the satellite in orbit. It was only a test, as the second launch of Safir was supposed to put Iran’s first satellite into orbit on February 2, 2009. But Omid was not a very complex satellite: a cube with a side of 40 centimeters and weighing only 27.3 kilograms.

Like the Sputnik, it contained only a radio transmitter, with which officials in Tehran could relatively easily prove that their satellite had reached orbit (although this was not required, the US has radars that can detect any orbiting satellite, the size which exceeds a tennis ball). . On April 25, 2009, the Omid satellite makes a devastating re-entry into the Earth’s atmosphere after completing its mission; the batteries on board ran out around February 20. It completed more than 700 Earth orbits (246 x 377 km) at an inclination angle of 55.5 degrees.

On February 3, 2010, aboard the Kavoshgar-3 rocket during a suborbital flight, a rat, two turtles and several worms fly into space in a biocapsule, that is, a capsule capable of supporting life forms on board, but not developed. enough to accommodate an astronaut.

After the successful launch of the Omid satellite, Iran began work on the development of a new generation Safir rocket (called Safir-B), capable of carrying twice the payload into orbit. For this, two solid-fuel boosters attached to the main rocket were used. On June 15, 2011, the Safir-B1 rocket launched the second Iranian satellite Rasad-1, weighing 15.3 kg, into orbit (236 x 299 km). Equipped with solar panels to generate electricity, Rasad-1 operates for 3 weeks, during which it is used to observe the Earth’s surface, carrying a camera with a resolution of 150 meters/pixel. On July 6, 2011, Rasad-1 completed its mission and disintegrated in the Earth’s atmosphere.

The Iranians are improving the Safir missile (creating variants 1-B) and launching the Navid satellite (Navid-e-Elm va Sana’t) on February 3, 2012.

But the Kavoshgar rocket is not forgotten and is being used by Iran to try to launch a new biocapsule with a monkey into orbit. The tests take place on March 11, 2011, when the Kavoshgar-4 rocket launches an unmanned capsule. Unfortunately, the launch of Kavoshgar-5 in September 2011, which involved a monkey, was unsuccessful, and the mammal did not survive.

The Iranians are improving the Safir rocket (construction variant 1-B) and on February 3, 2012, they launched the Navid satellite (Navid-e-Elm va Sana’t), which had a mass of 50 kilograms. Navid has been in use for 2 months for natural disaster monitoring and meteorological observations until April 1, 2012. The first image received from Navid was on February 8, 2012, 5 days after launch.

This was followed by three failed launches for Iran, not officially confirmed, on 23 May 2012, 1 October 2012 and 20 March 2014. The first two attempts were aimed at launching the new Fajr satellite, and one in 2013 was supposed to put Tadbir into orbit. satellite, an improved variant of Navid. It would have reached orbit if the booster had not stopped a few seconds earlier, turning the orbital attempt into a suborbital flight.

Finally, on February 2, 2015, Iran launches the Faj satellite

Finally, on February 2, 2015, Iran launches the Fajr satellite (50 kilograms, Safir can lift a maximum of 60 kilograms into space), exactly 6 years after Iran’s first orbital success. Fajr remained in orbit for 23 days.

In parallel, Iran’s Kavoshgar program is ongoing, and Iran claims to have launched a monkey into space twice in 2013, on two suborbital flights on January 29 and December 14, 2013, but the information could not be verified by a source outside Iran. For such flights, Iran uses the Pishgam biocapsule, which was supposed to be adapted to transport people in space in the near future (by 2019 in orbit and by 2025 on the moon, according to Tehran’s official statements at the time). , deadlines that were clearly not met).

In 2010, Iran’s space agency unveiled its new Simorgh launch vehicle, which made its first suborbital flight in 2016 and failed a year later. Simorgh can lift a satellite weighing 60-100 kg to a height of 500 km. After the Simorgh, Iran’s space agency plans to build a more powerful Qoqnoos rocket, about which not many details are known.

In 2019, there were three launches, but all three ended in failure.

In 2019, there were three launches, but all three ended in failure. On January 15, the Payam satellite was destroyed when the second stage of the Simorgh rocket developed a technical problem, marking the second consecutive failure of the Simorgh. A few days later, on February 7, the Safir 1-B rocket failed to put the Dousti satellite into orbit, and on August 29, 2019, an American spy satellite photographed the launch pad damaged by a recent explosion: it appears that the Safir rocket was ready to fly with the Nahid-1 satellite , but during refueling there was an explosion that destroyed the rocket and damaged the launch pad (a picture obtained by an American satellite was released by Donald Trump, who was obviously not consulted). his advisers before doing so, and the image was later removed because it was intended to reveal details about the operation of American reconnaissance satellites).

On February 9, 2020, at 15:48 UTC, the attempt to launch the Zafar-1 satellite ended with another failure of the Simorhg rocket. The rocket left the launch pad first and the first stage properly separated 105 seconds after liftoff, with the second stage ignited immediately after separation. The protective cone came off after 18 seconds. The satellite was supposed to reach an altitude of 530 km and an orbital inclination of 56 degrees, but the secondary stage was only able to give it a speed of 6,533 km/s, compared to the 7.4 km/s that would have been required for registration. in orbit Thus, the satellite reached a maximum height of 541 km, after which it returned ballistically to Earth. The collision with the Indian Ocean took place 25 minutes later, 6400 km from Semnan.

On April 22, 2020, Iran’s space program enters a new phase: the Iranian military announces the successful launch of the Noor satellite using the new Quased rocket.

It is Iran’s first military satellite, likely originating in the military space program, launched in parallel with a civilian (Iranian Space Agency) satellite, and most likely used for optical observations (although its small size limits its performance). .

The Qased is a derivative of the Shahab-3 medium-range ballistic missile (liquid-fueled, in turn derived from North Korea’s Nodong-1 missile) that was modified to receive the Salman (solid-fueled, announced to the public in February). . Unlike other launches that took place from the Khomeini Space Center in Semnan, Quased’s first launch took place from the Shahrood military base and the satellite reached an altitude of 426 km. Two more Qased launches will take place on March 8, 2022 and September 27, 2023, putting the Noor-2 and Noor-3 military satellites into orbit, respectively.

Iran’s space program is probably in its prime: recent activity makes it clear that it is a priority for the current regime, as a successful space program offers not only international prestige but also military technology (spy satellites and intercontinental ballistic missiles). ). Especially obvious since there is now a clear military branch that is obviously more successful than the civilian space program. Iran is far from putting a human into orbit, but that doesn’t mean it won’t develop next-generation launch vehicles, boosters and satellites in the near future, more powerful than the ones it has now.

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